International

Hunome is for humans, by humans, and about humans.

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 …

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Cool Startups Pitched in Icy Waters

Oulu, Finland — The Arctic startup event, Polar Bear Pitching, marked its live return after a hiatus of four years. A sizable crowd gathered at Oulu Market Square, while online viewers from around the globe tuned in to witness ten selected startups take the plunge into the Avanto (Finnish for ice hole), each aiming to impress the panel of judges …

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Tech-powered Hospitality Operator Bob W Secured €40 million Series B Funding

Helsinki — In a stride towards revolutionizing the European hospitality sector, Finnish tech-enabled hospitality operator Bob W has announced its Series B funding of EUR 40 million. This round, led by Evli Growth Partners and joined by growth capital investors and prominent European entrepreneurs, including Taavet+Sten, the investment firm of Wise’s founder Taavet Hinrikus and Sten Tamkivi, Flashpoint, and Supercell’s …

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Attending Slush 2023 was brimming with positive vibes

At a sizable booth, Samar Malik was promoting SAP for startups, emphasizing the company’s wealth of knowledge and expertise. It marked her inaugural attendance at Slush, where she commended the event and its arrangements. However, the genuine slush and sleet outdoors left the London resident a bit hesitant. Sami Vuorenmaa recently established his consultancy, Clarinum Insights, which focuses on helping …

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Helsinki-based Failup Ventures builds the venture bridge between the Nordics and U.S.

Failup Ventures, a new globally operating early-stage venture capital fund, has announced the first closing of €30 million of its new early-stage fund of €50 million. Founded by three previous Finnish entrepreneurs – Jesse Heikkilä, Topias Soininen, and Oscar Andersin – Failup Ventures backs early-stage startups with strong, mission-driven teams. Failup’s typical initial investments range from €200k to €1 million …

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20 startups left in Slush 100 Pitch Competition

  The most coveted pitching competition is the iconic Slush 100. The winner will get an equity investment from the leading early-stage funds in Europe: Accel, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA, and Northzone. These iconic funds have backed historic companies like Meta, Stripe, Airbnb, Snap, Uber, Spotify, Salesforce, Instacart, and Klarna. The race is on and the original amount …

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Slush sold out again this year 2023

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The eternal flame was ignited in 2008 in Helsinki with a one-day affair made up of around 250 people. Since that the event has grown by leaps and bounds, our goal has stayed the same: the focus is on how best to serve startup ecosystems across the world. As the founders and present employees of Slush organization want to inspire …

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Slush 2022 impressed the first-timers from near and far

As an event, Slush succeeds to impress all the attendees, even those Teflon-surfaced veterans, who have many previous Slushes on their belt. So it is no wonder, that the first-timers are generally astonished what comes to the atmosphere, solid arrangements, and the solid flux of meeting interesting people, especially  new ones. Deirdre Mc Gettrick from U.K. was attending Slush to …

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Live events are making their comeback: Arctic15 in Helsinki, Finland

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The Arctic15 Helsinki takes place on June, 7-8, 2022. Before the unforeseen pandemic hiatus, the event attracted over 1500+ Startups, VCs, CVCs, Angels, and Investors to get together. For this year, the arranging committee has some realistic numbers drafted: “We aim for 300+ investors, 450+ startups, 150+ corporates, a maximum of 2000 attendees and again – the name of the …

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Swedish and Ukrainian tech ecosystems meet over sustainable innovations

Sweden and Ukraine have had a close tech exchange for many years. To further cooperation between the countries, the Sweden-Ukraine Business Forum was founded by the Swedish Embassy in collaboration with the business community. On November 18, ministers, leaders of large export companies and tech startups will gather for the ninth year in a row in Stockholm. Sustainable tech focus …

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Finnish scale-up Nosto acquires Stackla, a global visual content marketing platform

The Finnish commerce experience scale-up Nosto has aquired Stackla, a visual content marketing platform for user-generated content. The acquisition is Nostos first acquisition and marks their entrance into the Australian and Southeast Asian markets.  By Uday Radia AI-powered personalized shopping Nosto, a Finnish commerce experience scale-up which helps retailers deliver personalized digital shopping experiences, has acquired Stackla, a global visual …

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Top Finnish startup accelerator expands to the Nordics and Baltics

Kiuas Accelerator

Summer of 2021 is closing in, and as the world is seeing a surge in optimism with the influx of vaccines, Kiuas, the #1 startup accelerator in Finland, brings exciting news about expansion. Kiuas today revolves around the startup accelerator programs, and with the changing world, it makes to evolve the flagship program, Kiuas Accelerator, to the next level as …

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Japanese web design hits the Nordics

Garden Eight is a multi-award-winning digital production team from Japan specialising in visual design, web design and web development. Founded in Asakusabashi, Tokyo in 2011, the studio has just opened their European headquarters in Copenhagen. The Nordics are known as the world’s “unicorn factory” per capita outside of Silicon Valley and have enjoyed a spotlight on their technologies from one …

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Baltic startup Cargo Stream aims to reduce Covid-19 stress on logistics sector

Due to the current Coronavirus crisis, supply chains around the world are being disrupted. Cargo Stream – a logistics management system established in Lithuania, is proposing a solution that optimize logistics processes and utilizes the potential of communication between the carriers, recipients, and logistics companies. Cargo Stream enables companies to manage logistics documentation and data more precisely, and shifts information …

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How Estonia Became A Tech Startup Nation

Situated in Northern Europe, Estonia is home to around 325 million people. Back in 1991, when Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union, it was a relatively poor country. However, this relatively small country, that includes around 1500 islands, has slowly but surely made its mark by evolving into a top startup nation. But how did they do it? By …

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From linear to circular: Six green startups that will change our economy

From more than 200 startups, only six were chosen to pitch at the finals of the Green Alley Awards, An award that aims to turn the linear economy into a circular economy. Even though there was only one winner, all six startups are worth keeping an eye on. Often it is the newcomers, the small, agile companies that challenge the …

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Slush Tokyo’s Global Gathering supports global ecosystem ambitions

Slush, one of Europe’s largest startup events, has been expanding globally for the past few years and last year held the first ever Slush Tokyo.  At Slush Tokyo 2019, a pre-event called the “Global Gathering” was held to better promote connections between global tech ecosystems. Ms. Haruka Furukawa(CEO, Slush Tokyo), Ms. Kristina Nummila ( Slush Helsinki) and Ms. Rinchy Teng …

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Amazon, Netflix and Google will meet the President of Estonia to talk about data and AI adoption in Europe

Artificial Intelligence champions from top technology companies Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, Google DeepMind, Nvidia, Taxify, Microsoft, Starship etc will meet at North Star AI, Applied Machine Learning and Data Conference on March 7 in Tallinn, Estonia to discuss how organizations and startups with limited resources can benefit from data and AI adoption President of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid will open the international …

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Belgian startup Husky on what they learned from the Nordic startup culture

Husky is a Belgian startup, designed to bundle marketers’ needs in one digital tool. It is made by marketers, for marketers. A digital platform like Husky allows you to plan and organize quickly. Managing tasks, projects and communication gets easier. In a recent talk, CEO Peter Desmyttere explains what he learned from the Nordic startup culture. By Robbe Desmyttere “To …

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Pitching in Georgia – a hidden market for tech travel startups?

Estonian travel startup Guide.me recently competed in the Welcome Challenge, a tourism-focused pitching competition in the country of Georgia. The rapid growth in tourism activities in Georgia is a major reason why investors sees Georgia as “currently underserved” by Nordic startups. Which industry employs one in ten people globally and accounts for ten percent of the world’s GDP? Hint: It’s the …

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