Part one: AI, SaaS + Sauna panel @ SXSW, the heat is on (“Löyly” [Finnish] meaning the heavenly steam of real Sauna)   Monday at SXSW took a different turn as Finns took over Bathe Austin, the new (and first) bathhouse in Austin. The program combined two things that don’t usually meet at tech conferences, especially outside Finland: tech and sauna. …

Global showcase at SXSW’s International Innovations Expo Saturday at SXSW brought one of the more open and globally mixed formats of the week: the International Innovations Expo at Fairmont Austin. As the SXSW did not have one central location (the Austin Convention Center has been demolished ans will be completely rebuild), the SXSW activities were spread wider into the Austin’s …

EU presence ran through GermanHaus — a familiar European anchor at SXSW On Friday March 13th, the European Union’s SXSW activities were concentrated into a single evening program under EU@SXSW, hosted at GermanHaus in downtown Austin’s Speakeasy. GermanHaus is not new as it has been one of the most consistent European presences at SXSW over the years — a platform …

Earlier on the first SXSW day, Capital Factory hosted the European Startup Embassy’s “Founders x Funders” session — a focused networking event connecting European startups with investors and ecosystem players during SXSW week. The format was simple. No stage, no long pitches. Just people meeting people in the Capital Factory’s amazing facilities, with some Pizza and Beers (very startup style) …

The SXSW week kicked off for startups at the annual Capital Factory’s Startup Crawl, a long-running format bringing together dozens of companies and partners under one roof in Austin. The concept is simple: move, meet, and talk. Short demos, quick introductions, and constant flow between tables. Less pitching, more direct interaction. Finnish startups were again part of the mix Audicin, …

Nordics at SXSW 2026 While SXSW is a remarkable tech event, having approx 300.000 visitors over the event week, the amount of people has decreased from the pre-pandemic by numbers. So has the Finnish presence become slightly smaller, but perhaps more focused. Nordics used to be better glued together, and showed up with bigger, more coordinated delegations. Often with Nordic …

Soo, in one week the Slush will be on. The wet snow will be on the ground again, the main event banner will be up, and the Helsinki streets, not only Maria01 hoods, are having that special Startup Vibe. And this year it seems/feels there are more Side Events than ever, making the whole week pretty Slushy, from Monday to …

…and a lot of Blue at Arctic15, 2025 So, Deal Tank at Arctic15 – Where Startups and Deals Collide. The Arctic15 startup conference, a Helsinki annual startups meet investors “chocolate shop” since 2011, has always been about connecting the right people to make things happen.    1st ever DealTank. Image (c) Arctic15 social media (screenshot) But in June 2025, they …

This piece is part of the Slush Chronicles series, “Founders Unplugged,” where we interview founders and key personnel of innovative companies, to hear their thoughts on the event we’re attending or dive into other spontaneously chosen topics. Slush 2024 founder: Timo Poijärvi SaluStim Group Got a message from Timo saying he is onto something amazing, and wanted to share their …

This piece is part of the Slush Chronicles series, “Founders Unplugged,” where we interview founders and key personnel of innovative companies, to hear their thoughts on the event we’re attending or dive into other spontaneously chosen topics. Slush 2024 founder: Veera Siivonen, Saidot At SXSW 2024 I went to listen to Saidot’s talk on AI governance, talking about the EU’s …

This piece is part of the Slush Chronicles series, “Founders Unplugged,” where we interview founders and key personnel of innovative companies, to hear their thoughts on the event we’re attending or dive into other spontaneously chosen topics. Slush 2024 founder: Jukka Tuhkanen, HIIL I ran into Jukka Tuhkanen, Director of Sales and Partnerships from Hiil, a wood “startup” transforming waste …

Here were the Top 3 awesomw pitches. And the winner is OASYS NOW Interview video on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1271191080860090 DevAlly . Mohana OASYS NOW Massive Congrats  

Wow, what an event it’s been. And officially just half way done So, the annual Slush Side Event, the Singa karaoke Chaos, finished the day1 of Slush 2024. In traditional Day1 afterparty. Bur before all the chaos, here’s a quick wrap up: The day 1 of Slush 2024 in Helsinki delivered a vibrant mix of innovation, networking, and forward-looking discussions. …

Slush100, the annual race for the 1 Million and all the glory, is on again at Slush2024 The Slush 100 competition offers a €1 million equity investment for its winner, backed by Cherry Ventures and General Catalyst. Open to early-stage startups founded in 2021 or later, with less than €2M raised, it emphasizes Europe and North America. The top 20 …

Slush week is here, and tomorrow there will be snow, eventually turning into Slush… The main venue will be dark and loud, and so will be the Helsinki City. As Peter Vesterbacka put it in the Slush earlydays: “It’s cold and dark outside, and the coolest developers are inside”. Again the Slush week events and venues are multiple, spreading all …

This year, Slush 2024 introduces an exciting, official side event: #musictech at Slush 2024. Music has always been an integral part of the Slush experience. Over the years, many big names have taken the stage at the Slush Afterparty, among a whirlwind of artists and performers, one of the most popular side events returning this year is the highly anticipated …

Another warm beginning of the warm Finnish summer – and another warm welcome to the old Cable Factory for the annual Arctic15 startup-investor conference. This story is the annual “vibes collection” from the Arctic15 floor, backstage, DealRoom meetings, official afterparties, unofficial gatherings and most importantly about HI, maybe with some added AI. (Got carried away with the HI, so wrote …

In the era of AI, Hunome talks mostly about HI   So, at Arctic15 we met many AI companies, and then we met Hunome, more into Human Intelligence, HI, and especially for Collective Sensemaking.  With that, and a bit wider purpose statement of “helping humanity make sense of itself”, I had a pleasure to talk to Dominique  & Mika  from …

Slush mainstage acted as a platform for company launches and product announcements, and the Media Area right behind the stage had instant Q&A session with the launchers and announcers. What a great concept, hoping this would cover even more of the speakers. One of the launches was Starstuff, that came out of the stealth mode with bells, whistles, Hanna and …

Silo.ai, the Finnish AI Lab, which is Europe’s largest private AI Lab, made some remarkable launches today at Slush 2023 In short, this is concerning a new platform training LLM’s, PORO1 and 2, with deployment for European languages, with keeping the data also in Europe. But NSN had a chance to sit down with Founder & CEO Peter Sarlin quickly, …