Finland

Polar Bear (Jason Brower) and MC Simo Kekäläinen put up an interval show. Startup companies competed this year in the Polar Bear Pitching event held in Oulu, Finland, in an exceptional location and under extraordinary circumstances. By the Oulujoki river, the weather was mild with temperatures above freezing and drizzling rain.The finals of the event featured ten companies, including five …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

  At the Slush startup event in Helsinki, Nico Rosberg, the 2016 Formula 1 World Champion, revealed what led him to pass by a lucrative contract extension in the pinnacle of motorsport and transition into an investor. – Nice to be back to my roots, said the 38-year-old to the extensive audience. By a fireside chat with Robert Lacher, the …

Slush is on the ground (even if it’s still snow, and frozen right now). Remembering back to the Slush earlydays, there was this saying: “It’s cold and dark outside, and the coolest developers are inside”. Back then the inside meant Kaapelitehdas aka Cable Factory, and a selected venue for after party. These days Slush is on for a week, and …

  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 …

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 …

Last week I had a pleasure to join the 2nd ever NORDEEP 2023 Summit, to see and hear what’s happening in Deep Tech scene within the Nordics. The opening keynote insights were given by Risto Siilasmaa, and that paved the way for this 2 days conference for a good crowd of attendees mainly from Finalnd and other Nordic countries. Risto …

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 …

The world’s leading startup conference Slush has decided to revoke the prize funding valued of 1M€ for Immigram, the Slush100 pitching competition winner after its alleged connections to Russia and Russian experts who want to exit their homeland. The company has also a presence in Russia. Immigram and its founders Anastasia Miroljubova and Mikhail Sharonov have created a platform, which …