Nordic Startup News Early Stage Startup News From The Nordics

Based on input from some of the top representatives in the Mobile and IoT industry, including Samsug, Qualcomm Ventures, and Motorola, SV House TV has compiled an infographic of what investments are hot with early stage corporate investors in 2016.

Finnish startup, Feedbackly, is dedicated to improving customer experiences as well as helping companies to increase their sales. The company has now raised a €500,000 funding round to help bring their new Software as a Service (SaaS) product to the market. When a company uses Feedbackly they are able to aggregate feedback from their clients in all manners, from brick-and-mortar …

Five months after announcing the closing of a €2 million funding round, Wolt returns with even bigger news. The rapidly-growing food-delivery service has raised €10 million in its latest funding round, backed by the key individuals behind Uber, Booking.com and Skype, accompanied with news of launching the service in Stockholm. Shortly after its previous funding round, Wolt announces an impressive …

It’s no secret that data is valuable. Oil used to be called black gold but now big data has taken its place. Kisko Labs breaks down what that means. At present there are ongoing discussions about the integrity of our data, the security of our data and the way in which companies we willingly give it to might be planning to …

Edmonton, the capital of Alberta in Canada, has a strong startup community, which in many ways shares similarities with Iceland.  An Edmonton film crew has create a project about Reykjavik. Check out the short film below. I have written about the strong affinity between the Startup Community in Edmonton and Reykjavik. Last year Startup Edmonton crew started a new project …

This past weekend, Startup Weekend Helsinki took place in the elegant surroundings of the NewCo building in the Kallio region of Helsinki.  Here is our look back at an inspiring weekend. Chris Georgiev, founder of Imagga, was the lively master of ceremonies, supported by a team of purple t-shirted volunteers. Present were seventy participants in their blue, yellow, orange, red …

The who, what, where, and when of the fintech industry today can be found in this excellent infographic put together by Banking Tech.  Find plenty of useful data, including the top specialists, uniforms, startup ecosystems, and acquisitions.  

In the startup world, teams who work remotely are quite common. Even now, however, when setting up a new team, the same questions frequently arise: is it really possible to work together without physically being in the same location? How can you do so effectively with little face-to-face interaction? What are some of the common risks that should be taken …

The Danish electronic invoicing startup Sproom has been acquired by Visma. The acquisition is part of Visma’s strategy to become the Nordic leader in e-invoicing. Sproom is a digital trading platform that automates and optimizes difficult and tedious billing work – the work that bigger companies have full-time employees to perform and that small business often lack the resources to …

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 …

It is a relatively nascent segment within the broader fintech sector, but investments in insurance-tech have soared in the first quarter of 2016.  Is insurance-tech the next big thing? According to CB Insights, the first quarter of 2016 saw early stage investments break all previous records for the same period in previous years.  Over $55 million has been invested in …

I had the great pleasure of paying a week long visit to South By South West (SXSW) in Austin, Texas in May 2016. My first thoughts on scene were that the interesting mixture of music, film and interactive events created a relaxed environment for people to present their companies and find common goals in their future business. By Kaius Meskanen, …

Media Honeypot, a “reverse pitching” event for startups and the traditional media industry, was held in Helsinki on April 6, 2016. I sat down with organizers Heikki “Hegu” Rotko, a long time media executive professional and Dmitri Sarle & Jan Ameri from Arctic Startup. Heikki  was recently at SXSW with me as part of the Team Finland Nordic Lighthouse program, …

Adjacent to the Helsinki University’s Department of Teacher Education, housed at the same University campus that once hosted Finland’s first particle accelerator, xEdu is firing up the first ed-tech accelerator for startups in Northern Europe. The education system in Finland has famously high rankings in world education polls.  While it might seem like Finland’s crown jewel should not be tampered …

Many of the world’s most successful companies and organizations are building open innovation platforms and communities and repositioning their brands as part of a global innovation network. As part of Crowdsourcing Week, April 11-15th,  Roland Harwood, co-founder and managing director of 100%Open, shares his tips on how to build your own open innovation ecosystem. By Roland Harwood Building on some …

This coming weekend, 15-17th April, the 7th Startup Weekend Helsinki comes to town. To “Launch a Startup in 54 hours” is the opportunity. Kicking-off on Friday evening, designers, developers, and innovators will pitch ideas to the crowd, form teams and build amazing startups over the course of the weekend. Results will be presented late on Sunday to an expectant crowd, …

Lemonsqueeze helps European startups scale into the US market from their offices in Brooklyn.  Now, the company will be expanding internationally themselves – back to founder Mik Strøyberg’s home country, Denmark, and much more.  For the first time, local startups will have access to Lemonsqueeze’s specialized knowledge in reaching outside of their home market. While the Nordics are one of …

Reshopper helps families to recycle items such as clothes through their platform, which joins local buyers and sellers.  Now, former AirBnB manager Aja Guldhammer Henderson has joined Reshopper to help them flourish abroad. For last four years, 31-year-old Aja Guldhammer Henderson has been a key figure behind the sharing economy-success of AirBNB in Scandinavia and the Netherlands.  She has now …

Want to help shape the future of green cities and create sustainable solutions to climate challenges on a regional level? Join the Nordic Cities Workshop, held in Malmö, Sweden from the 28-29th of April, 2016. Climate-KIC works to create consistency between private, public, and academic initiatives on climate change. Their goal is to find solutions to environmental challenges through cooperation …

Across the Nordic region, schools are looking to use ed-tech solutions to create a more individualized educational experience for students through adaptive and interactive learning, and help teachers better manage their classrooms.  While ed-tech companies rush to fill this need, it is worth remembering that it takes more than hardware to make adaptive and interactive learning a success. Ed-tech has …