Funding

More than 60 events have been gathered at the annual Oslo Innovation Week, the largest innovation fair in all of Europe. Ranging from investors meetings to insightful talks and pitch competitions, Oslo became a global arena for connecting, networking, and learning more about innovation in the startup world. The convention catered to circa 9000 participants under the three main themes …

Crowdsourcing Week’s cutting edge 5-days conference, CSW Europe 2015, will take place in Brussels from 19-23 October 2015. During the week, you will learn about people-powered solutions that will help foster exponential innovation in finance, governments, corporations, energy, smart cities, and mobility. Since its launch in 2012, Crowdsourcing Week (CSW) has created a worldwide movement on the collaborative economy rallying …

Entrepreneurs do the same stupid things over and over again. So says Jeanne Sullivan, venture capitalist, New Yorker, and cheerleader of women in business at Oslo Innovation Week. Jeanne knows what she’s talking about when it comes to startups.  With over 25 years of experience as a VC, she has seen “1000 times 1000 companies”. As a cofounder of Starvest …

This analysis of Q3 investments in the Nordics is based on a combination of publicly available and proprietary data gathered by Index. In Q3, tech startups based in the Nordic countries collectively raised $296.5 million in 73 rounds. This falls short of Q1 for the region by 21.9 percent. Compared to Q2, it comes in significantly lower ($812.8 million total) …

As exciting and interesting it is to live abroad,  the experience comes with many challenges. For example, communication, contact, and building of relationships can be quite a pickle when you move to a new place. Plane is an icebreaker app for expats in Scandinavia built to solve exactly those challenges. “We built Plane to address an itch I had when …

The old saying goes: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. But while there is no harm in indulging yourself with a juicy treat on a daily basis, the truth is that to stay fit, healthy and happy requires much more than that. It is a combination of a good workout and the right nutrition that often does the trick. While …

Crowdfunding as a fundraising method has had tremendous momentum in recent years, with multiple platforms competing for the multi-billion dollar pie.   What does the future hold? Crowdfunding as alternative finance has been on the rise for the past few years, with around €710 thousand being raised in 2010, €14.4 billlion in 2014, and an estimated €83 billion in 2025, …

With experience as both a doctor and entrepreneur, Dr. Imran Rashid from Aleris-Hamlet Hospitals has unique insight on how to perform on a high level while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. As an entrepreneur, you need to perform at your very best in order to establish your business and make it a success. However, the process can be stressful and adversely …

Last night, Crowdsourcing Week had a discussion with Theo Priestley about technology and crowds and Nordic Startup Bits joined the #Crowdchat. Here is a recap. What are your 3 predictions for a future when crowds and tech collide? The sourcing of innovation is going to become more open, as companies and government reach out to citizens to incubate ideas. Banking …

RetinaLyze is a company that aims to help patients with diabetes suffering from Diabetic Retinopathy, a common complication of the disease, by finding distortions in the retina. It is important innovation, since patients rarely ever notice symptoms before an advanced state of the disease, and by then it has a high probability to cause total blindness. To combat this, RetinaLyze …

Urska Srsen met her co-founder Sandro Mur on a kitesurfing trip in Croatia. For her, becoming an entrepreneur was a very spontaneous and almost accidental process. Something that started as a project ended up as a business. It all started when Urska’s friend Sandro contacted her mother, one of the leading obstetrical gynecologists in Europe, and started to inquire about …

Today the London-based Octopus Ventures launches a new $140 million fund to provide growth capital to “ successful fast-growing later-stage companies across Europe”, reports Tech Crunch. Last year, Octopus Ventures revealed it had a $91.3 million early stage funds. Today, they launched a new fund focusing on later-stage startups across Europe. Furthermore, the Octopus Zenith Opportunities II LP (also known …

This video was originally posted on HYBE. Finnish biohacking expert Teemu Arina talks about the many ways you can track and measure your life to stay on top.

With sleep measurement and gadgets both being red hot topics on crowdfunding platforms, when one of the companies combining the two says, “We made a strict decision not to do an Indigogo or Kickstarter campaign,” it does raise some questions. This article was originally posted on HYBE. Heikki Räisänen, CEO and primary owner of Emfit, a 25-year old company which earlier this year brought …

We interviewed Swedish Innovation Compass, an innovative app aimed at connecting startups with the right funding. Stephen Batley, CEO of Swedish Innovation Compass, and Sasa Farkas, technical lead, aim to make the startup ecosystem in Nordic countries even better than it is now.  The innovative app gathers information on all available and soon-to-be available  financial resources from the government  and …

On the day he closed a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, Petteri Lahtela, co-founder of health-tracking ring Oura, shared with Hybe his key lesson from the campaign. This article was originally posted on HYBE. Story It’s really important to get the story right. We were using a lot of time and several people, to really streamline the story so that all …

The crowd economy (aka sharing, gig or collaborative economy) which is seeing both global adoption and resentment, is a new crop of innovative business ideas that connects people through digital platforms and of course, billion-dollar company evaluations. The disruptive models that have emerged have shaken up laws, policies and rendered older systems obsolete. It is remarkably impressive that an emergent model is making a …

The Norwegian Startup scene is buzzing like never before. And just this spring Norway, for the first time, had more to celebrate than our neighbours at the Nordic Startup Awards. This article was originally posted on Angelchallenge.co A feat unimaginable just a year ago – and leaving some of the worlds best Startup ecosystems, i.e. Sweden and Finland, in the …

Online laundry and dry-cleaning service Washa get investment to scale big. Christian Stadil, Tommy Ahlers and Jesper Buch invested 1,5 million crowns (over 200,000 euro) in Danish startup Washa, an online laundry and dry-cleaning service that picks up your clothes and drops them off clean at your address within 48 hours. The investment took place in connection with the Danish …

Universal Avenue, a network of freelance Brand Ambassadors, has announced a new 5 million dollar funding round led by Northzone or Salesforce Ventures. Universal Avenue, a mixture of personal network marketing and sales, gives brands access to a global on-demand sales force. The new Swedish platform allows users, or Brand Ambassadors, to act as local sales representatives on a freelance basis- …