The VR Hackathon is coming to Europe from San Francisco this weekend.  With a slew of product releases and project sales of 14 million units, it is not without reason that 2016 is being called  “The Year of VR”. The VR Hackathon in Brussels, hosted by the Danish Sound Innovation Network and EUVR.org from January 15-17th,  marks the start of …

This week, Forbes released their annual “30 under 30” list of young talent, and 5 Swedes made the cut. The list, which totals 600 people in 20 different categories, is an annual compilation of young global talent.  The categories listed include e-commerce, enterprise tech, gaming, and finance. Although the Nordics (and Europe as a whole) were far outnumbered by the …

Fintech companies have been a hot topic in the Nordics as startups rush to disrupt the traditional financial sector.  Here is a look back at some of the main fintech trends and Nordic companies to watch in 2015.   Bitcoin Bitcoin reached a big milestone in 2015, when it scored a major win in Europe by earning EU tax free …

In the United States, startup companies that are valued at over a billion dollars in the very short term are called “unicorn” companies. Uber and Airbnb are two well-known companies to have received this designation. Now, Norwegian multinational Schibsted wants to build it’s own “unicorns”. In a stock exchange announcement, Frode Eilertsen, of Schibsted’s Media Group’s EVP Strategy and Digital …

SUP46,  the space that has become Sweden’s focal point for hot startups, presented some figures on the growth and funding of their members the past year. Check them out below:  

HYBE visited the head quarters of King, the Stockholm based gaming company that was recently bought with whopping 5.9 billion dollars. King is best known for their smash hit Candy Crush Saga, which is played by millions of people around the world. See what’s the company culture behind the company’s success? How does the magic happen? This video was created …

Crowdsourcing Week (CSW), a platform for promoting the crowd economy, has launched their own equity crowd-funding campaign. The goal of the campaign is to increase their e-learning and consulting offerings, to spread crowd-sourcing how-to to a wider audience. This includes an online educational program to teach businesses about the crowd economy While the current CSW community is in over 50 …

Today,global venture capital seed fund 500 Startups announced the launch of a $15 million fund to invest in early stage Nordic startups. In anticipation of the fund, the company has already invested in several Nordic companies across the region: Tagbeat, Filmgrail, and Socius in Norway, Pacemaker, Brisk.io, Proleads and Vint in Sweden, EasySize and Iconfinder in Denmark, and YouApp in …

The grand prize at Ultrahack 2015 went to the Butterfly Effect Project, who participated in the Civic Tech Track sponsored by Forum Virium. The project aims to enhance the way cities handle urban planning, by creating a platform for citizen involvement. The team, led by Natalia Remee, an architect by training from Northern Mexico, came from diverse backgrounds and nationalities:  …

Mobile phones have changed the way people experience the world. People daily use digital interfaces, as software has become  integrated into the products we use in our lives and work. By extension, people now have certain expectations for a UI (user interface), where the interaction between humans and machines occurs. But how does this affect the traditional industries? Olli Laiho …

Denmark’s largest conference for Nordic game developers is back in Aalborg on December 7th. This year, the Games Business 2015 conference focuses on the future of business in the games industry.  What will the future of business in games look like? And what will be the new trends and innovations in gaming?   During the one-day conference held in Aalborg, …

In the eight years since its inception, the SXSW Startup Accelerator competition has helped to propel many startups. The accelerator is essentially a global showcase for startups, and provides a platform for entrepreneurs to present the latest ideas in sectors as diverse as fintech, wearables, and entertainment. Of the 305 companies who participated in SXSW Accelerator between 2009 and 2015, …

The UBI Global Awards, held this year on October 26th,  is an annual ceremony announcing the top rankings of business incubators and accelerators worldwide. Since 2013, UBI Global has done comprehensive benchmarking of over 400 incubator programs across 70 countries. This year, Swedish and Finnish accelerators took home top rankings, including Finland favorite Startup Sauna and the prestigious Uppsala Innovation …

Subway Surfers, an “endless running” mobile game co-developed by Kiloo and SYBO Games, has gone from being the one of the biggest Nordic-developed mobile games, to being one of the biggest mobile games of all time. Subway Surfers reached 1 billion downloads last week, a milestone only a few games have ever reached.  The billion download mark comes on top …

Solu Machines is developing a radically new approach to computers by reshaping how devices and people coexist in the connected world. Will this small group of innovative people from a basement in Helsinki be able to alter the course of an entire industry? The founder and CEO of Solu Machines, Kristoffer Lawson, talks about why they chose to take on …

It isn’t only entrepreneurs who sabotage great business ideas by making stupid mistakes. Investors are just as guilty. Last week at Oslo Innovation Week, we talked with Jeanne Sullivan of Starvest Partners, about the 5 stupid mistakes entrepreneurs make over and over again. Of course, as an entrepreneur, “You have to know what to do and how to do it, …

SBT Aqua‘s stated goal is to “radically improve the standards of water quality control” to prevent the spread of water-born illnesses, and they are not far from making this a reality. As DTU students, founder and CEO Gustav Erik Skands, along with his team, Frederik Peter Aalund (CIO) and Christian Vinther Bertelsen (CTO), discovered that the current way of detecting …

It is inevitable that you have to use lawyers at some stage if you run a company. At Oslo Innovation Week, Martin B. Rove and Remi Christoffer Dramstad, two lawyers with experience in corporate law and finance, imparted some lessons learned from law for entrepreneurs Avoid the mess Don’t let a giant backlog of paperwork build up – you’ll live …

Entrepreneurs do the same stupid things over and over again. So says Jeanne Sullivan, venture capitalist, New Yorker, and cheerleader of women in business at Oslo Innovation Week. Jeanne knows what she’s talking about when it comes to startups.  With over 25 years of experience as a VC, she has seen “1000 times 1000 companies”. As a cofounder of Starvest …

While a lot of effort goes into marketing and advertising to get new customers to buy a product or service, companies somehow do not share the same enthusiasm when it comes to providing a good experience. However, in a world where traditional monopolies are being broken by new age innovations, retaining customers is increasingly rising in importance. Companies, both startups …