Nordic Startup News Early Stage Startup News From The Nordics

This past weekend Brussels hosted the first ever Hackathon dedicated to Virtual Reality (VR) in Europe, where close to 100 participants took over the co-working space Co.station to hack the next generation of VR technologies. The event was hosted by a collaboration of MIC.Brussels and impulse.brussels, who supports the development of companies using VR.  20% of the participants came from …

If you’re following the Nordic startup ecosystem, then you’ll have heard of Startup Sauna, one of the regions top accelerators for promising early startups. But if you want to be one of the lucky chosen startups, here are 6 things you definitely need to avoid. Accelerators and incubators are often key players in helping startups prepare for their next steps …

STARTnordic, is organizing a cross-country collaboration for the greater good. The project aims to create a framework that will better enable potential high growth companies to reach unicorn levels of success, and consolidating the small Nordic countries into a single regional powerhouse. As part of this initiative, STARTnordic is providing free flights and accommodation to San Francisco for the LAUNCH …

A Nordic Web Report on Icelandic tech and startup investments in 2015 shows a staggering 1,568% growth in year-on-year funding from 2014 to 2015. Number of investments rose from seven to seventeen. This massive growth in funding is mainly fueled by three big investments: Verne Global’s $98 million (~12.7bn ISK) Series D round in January, Carbon Recycling International’s $45.5 million (~5.9bn ISK) …

John loves his Friday nights out with his friends. Last Friday, he went out to with his friends to the pub,  had a good time, and picked up the tab for the table at the end of the night with the plan to “settle” the bill later. But we all know what happens next. When “later” arrives, John feels awkward …

A tech-savvy Norwegian school is giving its students the option to play competitive video games, all in the name of education. Playing video games might not sound like something that children should be doing at school, but today a growing of entrepreneurs are calling for schooling systems to adopt a game-style of learning,promise that it could help cut school’s costs …

The VR Hackathon in Brussels kicked off last night, bringing with it the promise of a new world of VR in 2016 and a healthy dose of viking tech-savvy – 20% of the participants came from the surprising VR stronghold of Denmark. Perhaps a sign of things to come,  a surprising number of pitches came from outside the VR stronghold …

According to the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Index, Denmark ranks as the highest country in Europe and is number four worldwide, after the United States, Canada, and Australia. This means Denmark is in the top 5 performing countries globally, moving 2 places up from 2015.  But what is Denmark is doing better than other countries? Education is the way forward The …

After a turbulent year that saw markets riled, commodities plunge, and currencies wither against the dollar, many expected the American dollar to come back out as the top currency in 2015. Instead, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin is being heralded as the best performing currency.  Does this mean everyone is poised to get on board with bitcoin?  Not yet. On the face …

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 …

Íris Ólafsdóttir, an Icelandic entrepreneur, is the visionary and CEO of Kúla 3D. A self-described amateur photographer, Íris devised a product that brings photography into the third dimension. Kúla 3D creates camera accessories that turn your smartphone (and other cameras) into 3D cameras. The idea for the product was conceptualized during Íris’ maternity leave. Íris noticed a toy reflected in …

Nowadays, the apps on your smartphone today are far more likely to be created in Stockholm or Sweden than in Silicon Valley. If asked most people would assume these businesses are American or British creations, but they’d be wrong.While they may have now moved the bulk of their staff to those countries, these businesses are flag bearers of the Nordic …

The latest figures from the Danish Business Authority reveal that the distribution between men and women engaging in entrepreneurship has remained constant since 2001, with 1 out of every 3 entrepreneurs being female. An entrepreneur is statistically defined as a person who creates new business in non-agricultural industries, meaning re-launches, acquisitions and the like are not counted. In Denmark, there …

In Q4, tech startups based in Nordic countries collectively raised $309.8 million in 107 rounds. Though not the biggest quarter of 2015 in terms of amount raised – a distinction still carried by Q2 and its massive $812.8 million cumulative intake – it is the top quarter for amount of individual investments, by an easy 40 rounds. This funding analysis …

Kristin Skogen Lund, director of the NHO, Norway’s leading business lobby, thinks Norwegians have been in the comfort zone for far too long, and that change in the workplace is necessary. “There are a lot of changes we are now facing, and everything is dependent on how we choose to tackle them.  We are in this epoch of change, and …

The Internet of Things (IoT) will change everything. Existing businesses will be disrupted and their business models will be changed forever. Here’s why. Put yourself in the shoes of Philips, consumer products manufacturer. Philips makes dishwashers. One day, they’re going to throw a sensor and wifi chip into the newest dishwasher model and call it a “smart” appliance. We’ll have …

Iceland’s Frumbjörg, started by Brandur Karlsson in cooperation with Sjálfsbjörg, the Icelandic national federation of the disabled, is an Innovation Center for Mobility. The initiative’s goal is to provide the disabled with the opportunities for employment and develop innovations within the healthcare and social sectors. The social entrepreneurship venture is meant to provide individuals with disabilities office space and guidance …

We caught up with  Juha Huttunen, co-founder of Vibecatch, and asked him a few questions about how to improve company culture – and profitability – with 15 questions. How did you come up with the idea for Vibecatch? We originally worked for a software company and wanted to measure, internally, how satisfied the employees were with the company and their …

Mistbase is an upcoming IoT start-up that provides the technology that makes IoT possible, and is ready to take on the telecom giants. The company, based out of the Ideon Innovation Incubator in Lund, Sweden, was founded in mid-summer 2015 by long-time friends and colleagues Michal Stala and Magnus Midholt, who have a combined experience of over 20 years working …

2015 has seen an explosion in funding, interest in, and new product development around Artificial Intelligence. Facebook delivered M, Amazon gave us Echo, and Google launched TensorFlow, its open source machine learning library. A whole host of startups have also emerged, including x.ai, HyperScience, and Vicarious. There’s an interesting parallel to the web, circa 1998. At that time, tens of …