International

Polar  Bear Pitching 2016 is a global investment event where over the course of 2 days startups from different countries introduce their projects to the whole world – from a freezing ice hole in Oulu, Finland.  We interviewed Anna Svirelkina from To Round about her experience. The event, which is held yearly, allows competing startups to communicate with investors and …

Singapore has unveiled a plan to become the world’s leading startup ecosystem within fintech, challenging similar initiatives in the Nordic countries. Singapore has developed a lot since becoming independent in 1965. Before, the country was a central post for major banks and finance houses, but as the country looks to the future, it has shifted it’s focus towards startups. In …

VR technology has reached unprecedented momentum.  According to CB insights, AR and VR startups raised $658 million in equity financing last year, and Florida based Magic Leap set a new bar for funding when it raised a $794 million round led by Alibaba in February 2016. The Nordics have a slew of startups in this niche including Breakroom, Moggles, and …

After a test period in Scandinavia, Plane is ready to launch its icebreaker app globally. The launch will occur in connection with the LAUNCH Festival in San Francisco. The founders of plane are CEO and co-founder,Tim Allison , and co-founder, Thomas Baastrup Jacobsen. “We have spent the last few months testing our app in Scandinavia and building a community. It …

Successful global growth of ICT, Medtech, green tech and consumer product innovations can be the future for the Nordic economies.  But the process from idea to market success is quite different for the Nordic countries compared to the US. By Jennifer Vessels Sustainable growth requires more than a product idea.  It demands skillful commercialization to drive customer adoption and revenue …

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 …

Sustainable Brands is a global business community dedicated to helping shift the world to a sustainable economy.  In anticipation of their Copenhagen conference in 2016, founder KoAnn Skrzyniarz outlines 7 sustainable, global business trends. KoAnn Skrzyniarz  travels around the world working with large brands to promote sustainability while still maintaining a competitive business. “There will be new sustainable ideas and …

Denmark has just been named the best place to start a business Europe. However, funnily enough the startup environment here is quite disconnected from the rest of Europe. Danish companies tend to expand either to other Nordic countries or go big and enter the US market. Why not enter other European countries? Even though Danish startup scene seems international, majority …

Mike Hearn, one of the core developers of Bitcoin, recently wrote a Medium post in which he publicly announced that he will no longer be taking part in Bitcoin development and that “the bitcoin experiment has failed.” A New York Times article soon followed, and then countless other journalists joined in, echoing Hearn’s remarks without attempting to explain the highly …

Bloomberg has released their annual ranking countries based on their ability to innovate in six equally weighted metrics, and all of the Nordics placed in the top 30. Sweden ranked highest in 3rd place, with Finland and Denmark in 7th and 9th place, respectively.  Iceland ranked at number 28. The economies were scored on 6 equally weighted factors including research …

Crowdfunding is fun and exciting, but it also requires hard work and a bold attitude to go the extra mile. It cannot be overemphasized how important it is always to try new things, fail quickly, and learn from the mistakes so we can turn them into opportunities. Cautious optimism is an indispensable attitude when launching an equity crowdfunding campaign. Below …

This past weekend Brussels hosted the first ever Hackathon dedicated to Virtual Reality (VR) in Europe, where close to 100 participants took over the co-working space Co.station to hack the next generation of VR technologies. The event was hosted by a collaboration of MIC.Brussels and impulse.brussels, who supports the development of companies using VR.  20% of the participants came from …

STARTnordic, is organizing a cross-country collaboration for the greater good. The project aims to create a framework that will better enable potential high growth companies to reach unicorn levels of success, and consolidating the small Nordic countries into a single regional powerhouse. As part of this initiative, STARTnordic is providing free flights and accommodation to San Francisco for the LAUNCH …

The VR Hackathon is coming to Europe from San Francisco this weekend.  With a slew of product releases and project sales of 14 million units, it is not without reason that 2016 is being called  “The Year of VR”. The VR Hackathon in Brussels, hosted by the Danish Sound Innovation Network and EUVR.org from January 15-17th,  marks the start of …

Fintech companies have been a hot topic in the Nordics as startups rush to disrupt the traditional financial sector.  Here is a look back at some of the main fintech trends and Nordic companies to watch in 2015.   Bitcoin Bitcoin reached a big milestone in 2015, when it scored a major win in Europe by earning EU tax free …

While many consider innovation to be the province of Silicon Valley and other high-tech centers in developed markets around the world, the reality is very different.  A look at where intellectual property is being created gives us some indication that we have to broaden our horizons when we look at new innovations. By Ajay Krishnan, Roger Edgley, and Laura Geritz …

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. …

Nordic businesses represented their region on Deloitte’s EMEA Fast500 List in 2015, with Swedish based iZettle as runner up, Norwegian Clean Marine and Etrinell in the top ten, and six of fourteen Icelandic companies on the country’s Fast50 making it to the Fast500. Earlier this week, Deloitte announced the fourteenth Fast500 List for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The list includes …

One of the main themes at NEXT15 , the two-day tech conference that occurred concurrently with Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, was mobility. The conference attempted to answer the question “How will we move?” with all the opportunities and challenges that it implies. But zooming out and looking at the question in the context of the entire conference – with discussions …

With its Danish partner bank in place, the Scandinavian “neo-bank”, Lunar Way, is now rolling out its partner model in Northern Europe.  It will be the first mobile bank in Norther Europe to rapidly scale through this model. The partner model is the first of its kind in the world of European neo-banking and gives Lunar Way the advantage of …