Finland

The Nordic Startup Awards grand finale took place in the Harpa Center in Reykjavik, Iceland, and hosted collaboration with Icelandic Startups.  Attendees from all over the Nordics gathered to celebrate the best startups, accelerators, and investors of the year. Kim Balle, founder of the Nordic Startup Awards, spoke about why the awards are so important for the startup ecosystem. “We …

With virtual reality the next frontier for digital innovation, a growing number of Finnish companies are offering a pioneering look at things to come. Science fiction has always offered far-fetched future imaginings of various shapes and sizes. Sometimes, however, this crystal ball gazing also comes true. A self-driving car? Google now has the answer. Video conferencing? Thanks Skype. How about …

The MyData 2016 Conference is an international event  dedicated to helping people manage and reuse their personal data currently controlled by companies and governments. The conference will bring industry leaders to Helsinki later this summer in an effort to drive forward this important topic. MyData is an initiative led by Open Knowledge Finland  and the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology …

The growing variety of threats to IT security represents an expansive future for the Finnish company Nixu, who are making cyber security services to keep the digital society running. Overlooking the sea in the Espoo suburb of Keilaniemi, it seems somehow fitting that a world globe is situated inside the meeting room at Nixu’s office. “Our strategy is to be …

The semi-finals of the Nordic Startup Awards are now finished. This series of events promotes and celebrates startups in the Nordic region.  Country winners are chosen for each country, and the finalists move upwards to a grand ceremony held in Iceland at the end of May. Winners in Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark have been announced in regional ceremonies …

The InnoFrugal Conference acts as a forum for best practices, policy analysis, sharing the latest thinking and highlighting success in frugal innovation. The second annual InnoFrugal event was held last week at Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre in Vantaa, a few minutes north of Helsinki. Co-organised by the non-profit Nordic Frugal Innovation Society and the Ministry For Foreign affairs Finland, …

The world-renowned startup and technology event Slush is set to occur for it’s ninth run in Helsinki, Finland on November 30 and December, 2016.  Register now to join the biggest startup conference in the Nordics and one of the most exciting startup events worldwide. “Our focus is on creating an event that brings the highest value to the startups. We …

Last week a new collaboration space, Flux, opened in downtown Helsinki. Within the beautiful old Korkeavuorenkatu 35 building, a fresh and funky space has emerged. Already it is a hive of activity and the plan is to continue to have an intensive calendar of events in the coming weeks. Pekka Horo, General Manager, Microsoft Oy welcomed visitors and highlighted the …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

Doubling each year over recent years, Crowdfunding has seen dynamic growth from $2.7 billion in 2012, to an expected level greater than $34 billion for last year 2015.  In the Nordics, crowdfunding continues to gain legitimacy, with Finland-based Invesdor becoming the first crowdfunding platform to be granted a MiFID license, which legitimizes the companies ability to do business across Europe. …

Trip Republic, the Helsinki-based startup based on travel planning and booking, has just secured a €200,000 round,  bringing their total funding amount since starting to €325,000. The startup was featured earlier this year at Travel Technology Europe  in London, where they were the sole Nordic company nominated for the prestigious Travel Technology Disrupt Award. The funding will be used to …

Live from Media Honeypot: I visited the deal room just before lunchtime and talked to Tuomas Maisala from Spinno, who was tasked with overseeing the matchmaking process. Though busy, the large room was running like clockwork.  Tuomas has years of experience under his belt arranging such events and whilst it was mainly an automated process, it still required talented human …

EzyInsights, a Finnish startup that has developed a social media analytics tool aimed at content providers, has launched a new product, the “SoMe Index”, at Media Honeypot 2016. The SoMe Index streamlines how content is accesses across all of the main social media platforms by finding the most relevant content to increase organic traffic. Duane Atkins from Ezyinsights hit the …

Startup Refugees, set up by Finnish journalists and entrepreneurs Riku Rantala and Tunna Milonoff, gives refugees the skills to enter the workforce and set up businesses. Rantala and Milonoff got the idea for the project while doing their series Docventures, a popular combination of political documentary films and talk show. The adventurous pair felt they needed to stimulate people’s thinking …