Nordic Startup News Early Stage Startup News From The Nordics
The world-renowned startup and technology event Slush is set to occur for it’s ninth run in Helsinki, Finland on November 30 and December, 2016. Register now to join the biggest startup conference in the Nordics and one of the most exciting startup events worldwide.
“Our focus is on creating an event that brings the highest value to the startups. We will go all-in in making sure we create an event that generates opportunities for founders and investors to connect. Continuing the development of our matchmaking software that generated over 4,000 pre-booked meetings at the event last year, is among our top priorities,“ says Marianne Vikkula, President of Slush.
Slush was originally started back in 2008 as a goal to get more people show an interest in startups and the startup community in general. Astoundingly, it has since grown to become one of the biggest European startup conferences. The Nordics are one of the biggest contributors to technology, but the Nordics are also very bad at highlighting their own successes. Slush was started as a way to combat that bashfulness and in order to be able to attract talent and capital to the region the (around) 300 people who started Slush knew that they needed to make their voices heard internationally in order to address this topic. The Nordics work best together and are stronger in forming alliances across borders building on similarities and common values in becoming noticed worldwide.
In 2015, Slush brought together 15,000 attendees, including 1,700 startups, 800 venture capital investors and 630 journalists from exactly 100 countries. Rather than just focusing on expanding and having more attendees, more startups, more venture capital investors, and more journalists, the focus, refreshingly, is on the main focus of Slush, to truly pursue an avenue where founders of companies can push forward with their ideas. How do they do it? Well, there is steady focus on connecting startup hubs in a global manner as well as providing better access to talent, capital, and networks.
Building the Nordic collaboration
The Nordic countries have a strong ecosystem in regards to technology, and one of the main tenets of Slush is to emphasize the importance of continuing to develop the Nordic community. A focal point in the past few years has been to bring the Nordic entrepreneurship community even closer. A trip to NYC last year serves as a highlight in that many Nordic startup organizations came together to collaborate and showcase the startup scene in the Nordics in the US. “This was the first time that Nordic ecosystem leaders came together at once. It set the tone for enhanced collaboration, culminating in a record-high Nordic participation at Slush 2015,” explains Eva Fogdell, Head of Nordic Operations at Slush.
Slush worldwide
The Nordic ecosystem will come together at Slush Asia, happening in Tokyo in May, just around the corner. There will be 4,000 visionaries in Tokyo for this event. The first time that Slush Asia was organized was last year in 2015. It had quite an impressive turnout of 3,000 attendees, 250 startups, 100 investors, and 200 media representatives from all around the world. “This marked a new chapter of bridging dialogues between startup communities across Asia and the world,” explains Antti Sonninen, Main Organizer of Slush Asia.
Furthermore, with Slush Asia happening again this year, Slush Asia will continue to build a startup ecosystem to ignite the potential that is in Japan. “Founding a startup is still a rare career choice in Japan. Slush Asia is changing that by building new role models and a community of support. We make sure that the ambition level is high enough also in this part of the world,” says Sonninen.
