Slush

From extending battery life to make value out of wood waste, ten cleantech startups pitched their ideas to tackle the climate crisis at this year’s Slush. This year’s Slush was all about changemakers and the oncoming sustainable revolution. While a lot of startups attending the two-day conference had the potential of making a change, ten cleantech startups were selected to …

At the end of this month at the Slush conference in Helsinki, the Danish startup Valuer.ai will be launching its new platform. Their new matchmaking tool will connect corporations and investors to the startups that best match their needs and interests. Valuer was founded in February this year by Daniel Laursen, previously founder of Trendsonline, Dennis Poulsen, former co-founder of …

Do you want to build a successful hackathon team? Meet five Ultrahack teams and learn how it’s done! Hackathons are often considered as a playground for developers, but even the most brilliant execution is not enough: the concept and how you validate your solution are equally important. And without a proper pitch, the judges and investors might not to see the …

Slush, the largest startup event in the Nordics, took place in the “death month” of November in Helsinki. With over 15,000 attendees comprising 1,700 startups, the array of new companies and technologies can be dizzying.  From the SLUSH 100  pitching competition to the 240 demo booths, here are 5 startups that caught our eye.   FairStart FairStart is a startup …

Slush is finished and if you’re anything like most people you felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities: from exciting startups and world-famous experts, to inspiring talks and promising parties. So where should you focus your time to get the most out of it next time around? Last week I set out to find the best practical advice to …

November weekend in Helsinki for most of us doesn’t sound like the time of our lives – it’s dark, cold and windy in the seaside city. To make matters worse, the Finnish word for November, Marraskuu, by it’s etymological meaning means the month of death, marras origin from the same word family as Latins mors and French’s mort, death – …

In the startup world the role of an investor is to take “capital off the table”. This means that an entrepreneur can focus on delivering the product, without constantly needing to worry about resources. One of the promises of basic income is to do just that, not only for entrepreneurs but for all of us. But that’s only the beginning. …

The Redefining School program, which covered the challenges of education, was featured at Slush 2015. Among the speakers was Saku Tuominen, CEO and Co-Founder of Scool. Scool aims to find the best practices in education and share all the insights and know-how with the world, for free. As Tuominen said in his speech at Slush, the challenges of future education …

Known for its technologically innovative startup scene, Estonia has spawned many an international startup successes. The likes of Skype, TransferWise, Pipedrive and GrabCAD have dominated the international news until recently. Now, Greenhouse CI hopes to grow mobile apps from it’s base in Tartu. Estonia’s second largest city, Tartu, is emerging as a startup hub. The locally renowned Garage 48 Hub …

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 …

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 …

Atomico and Slush released a study,“The State of European Tech”, at Slush 2015. The study is the most comprehensive review to date carried out on the European tech community, its tech talent, capital flow, entrepreneurial mindset, and success stories. Niklas Zennström, CEO and co-founder of the investment firm Atomico, co-writers of the report,  spoke at Slush about the big changes …

Finnish ed-tech startup Funzi starts with a premise you may be familiar with – learning on a mobile phone. But their unique focus on emerging markets has people around the world sitting up and taking notice. Funzi is reinventing how learning is delivered – not in terms of content, but in terms of the delivery of learning to the individual. …

Helsinki based Health Operator offers personalized diagnostics and monitoring services to the private health sectors as well as commercially to the public. They were one of the winners of this year’s Nokia Open Innovation Challenge, held at Slush 2015. Imagine going to the bathroom to go about your daily routines, while an array of non-invasive sensors monitors your blood pressure, …

The pitching competition at the massive startup conference Slush is high stakes and high pressure.  After some stressful preparations, I was called onto stage to pitch my start, EdTech Foundry, in front of an audience in hopes of winning an investment. Last night ended on a high note, and I felt ready to pitch. But in the morning, will all …

The Slush pitching competition: one of the highest stakes startup competitions in the world. Three minutes to explain who you are, what you do, how you will make money and how you will grow your business. In addition you must stick out from the crowd and seduce a panel of spoiled venture capitalists.  No matter how experienced you are, the …

Last week Daniel J. Mierzwinski, head of product at Sponsta, a Denmark-based online platform that connects brands with influential Instagramers across the world, went off to Helsinki to attend SLUSH, one of the most hyped startup events of 2015. When he came home we asked him how it all was Last week I joined more than 14,000 people at SLUSH in Helsinki to build …

Keeduu is a new learning solution, which combines official primary education curriculum with gaming in a unique way. With an official launch to the public at Slush 2015, Keeduu presented a solution aimed at schools which brings education into the digital era in an easy and simple manner. By combining a game, textbook, videos, assignments and educational exercises, Keeduu wants to …

Located in Amman, Jordan and Copenhagen, Denmark, NA3M Games develops entertaining games, animated series and webcomics that are inspired by Arab culture. NA3M was founded in 2013 and has already released 7 games, and to top it off, it was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, interviewed by Becky Anderson on CNN, and featured in large …

The NYC based StartUp Health, a global digital health organization boasting the world’s largest portfolio of companies.  Yesterday, the Finnish Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, Finpro, and Team Finland announced the launch of StartUp Health Finland. StartUp Health Finland will be based at the Health Innovation Village in the Finnish Capital Helsinki, which houses a collection of Nordic health tech …