Nordic Startup News Early Stage Startup News From The Nordics
Startup Fest Europe takes place in the Netherlands from 24 – 28 May and aims to bring the world together and help startups grow faster. With more than 28 events will take place in 14 cities across 5 days, Netherlands will transform into the center of the global startup community. These are the hard facts. The real fun is to be there, here’s why:
1. You get to learn from the best!
The Dutch entrepreneurial ecosystem has been ranked as #1 in Europe and it got there from being fourth in less than two years, under the guidance of StartupDelta, the initiative led by Neelie Kroes, former vice president of the European Commission for the digital agenda. If you’d like to learn some of the secrets behind the amazing growth and success and the way it operates, come and delve into it. Perhaps, if we want to level up the Nordics, we should accomplish the level of collaboration and raging support for startups that they have built in the Netherlands. Hint: they made a nation-wide fest to celebrate the entrepreneurial success of the country and for an entire week startups will be on everyone’s mind. The purpose of Startup Fest Europe is to encourage and inspire people to create more business. For a full week, the Netherlands will showcase the fields of expertise in which it excels: food and agriculture, health, energy, high tech and water technology. Thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs, developers, hackers, investors and corporate innovators will get together to create tomorrow’s economy.
2. Do you want to scale? The world’s best VCs in your industry will be there!
Startups will have multiple ways to connect with and talk business with the VCs flying in from London, Silicon Valley, Johannesburg, Mumbai with the main purpose to invest in Europe. A little bit of name dropping, if you’re curious who are we talking about: Vinnie Lauria (Golden Gate Ventures), James Wise (Balderton), Matteo Rizzi (Omidyar), Jeppe Zink (Northzone) and Elody Dupuy, Vice President at Insight Venture Partners. Their portfolio includes successful investments in companies such as Skype, Betfair and Takeaway.com, so you can rest assured they all are top-notch! For more attending VCs check out the investor page.
3. Deals, deals, deals!
The organizers of Startup Fest Europe are committed to facilitating worldwide matchmaking between funds, startups, talent and centers of excellence. You will have the chance to connect with the best in your industry – both horizontally and vertically. Wandering if you’d be able to find the right people? No worries, there’s an app for that – specially created for the participants of the fest and enabling effortless connections and making networking better, easier and more relevant.
4. All the cool startup action within a few days!
You can join variety of events, hackathons, LAN parties, pitching. In addition to that you will get through the fast lane if you’d like to visit museums and modern cultural institutions and learn from the Dutch how to catch the latest trends and explore new opportunities. Finally, you can join the epic dance party on the last day of the fest!
5. Oh, and there are fantastic speakers too!
If at some point you’ve started your startup pitch with “We’re creating the Uber for…” or “We’re designing the Apple/ iPhone of…” you should know that the leaders of the greatest companies that inspired you for your startup will be there at the Startup Fest Europe’s opening in Amsterdam. Apart from the spectacular lineup of keynote speakers that includes Tim Cook (Apple), Eric Schmidt (Alphabet, Google’s parent company), Travis Kalanick (Uber) and Nathan Blecharczyk (Airbnb), the opening day on May 24th at the Beurs van Berlage will host Europe’s most promising startups and the world’s greatest Venture Capitalists. Would you like to be one of those startups? There is still chance to register!
