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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 …

A delegation of Nordic startups rang the bell at the Nasdaq in New York on October 11th, as part of the #NordicMade showcase. #NordicMade is a community initiative that aims to build bridges between global tech regions and strengthen Nordic cooperation.  The bell-ringing also signaled the launch of a new €1.5 million Nordic fund. Helga Valfells, CEO of NSA Ventures, …

Paralenz, a new project by Danish design agency Moef, has broken a Kickstarter record, by obtaining a third of their funding in just the first 8 minutes of their crowdfunding campaign.  Paralenz is a high-performing underwater camera especially designed for divers. To be deep under the sea is like stepping into another mysterious, fantastical world.  But human ingenuity has made …

“Fundraising isn’t hard. At least not hard like impossible,” says Shipitwise.  Sander Gansen tells the story of how Shipitwise succeeded on the crowdfunding platform Funderbeam  to raise €176,000 below. As we were going through Startup Wise Guys accelerator, we met a variety of mentors and investors. But there was one we particularly liked. It was Kaidi Ruusalepp! She showed us …

New York: In a few minutes, Danish BookBuses founder Oscar Aabech Jung will be entering the stage in front of 700 American investors. This is the day Oscar Aabech Jung and the rest of the Danish IT company Book Buses have been working towards the last months. “Demo Day” is for startup businesses looking to raise capital.  Though similar events …

Impact Iceland 2016 is crowdfunding Iceland’s first conference on social entrepreneurship on Karolina Fund.  It will be the first in a series of conferences in Iceland focusing on social innovation as a profitable, sustainable, and impactful response to today’s challenges. Tanja Wohlrab-Ryan writes at Startup Iceland about making Iceland not only a vibrant startup community, but a hub of social …

The Stockholm-based healthy food startup Naturalbox explains their successful crowdsourcing campaign on Prowly. Results: coverage in key media channels, nearly 100 investors, 212% campaign overfunding. In order to raise capital for its operations, Naturalbox chose crowdsourcing over a traditional VC, engaging its customers, friends and fans. To make that happen, the startup decided to leverage all the advantages of social …

A common thought, though perhaps a naive one, is that the online fashion retail market is saturated and there’s no room for newcomers to have any mainstream success. While it’s true that technology pretty much allows anyone to knock up a web-store, source cheap products or sell on behalf of a larger company, it doesn’t mean there isn’t room for …

TactoTek, a leading manufacturer of 3D injection molded structural electronics (IMSE) solutions based in Oulu, Finland, announced today that it has been named a recipient of a €2.5 million EU Horizon 2020 award to mass produce injection molded electronics (IME) solutions. Horizon 2020 is the financial instrument of Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe’s global …

Swedish Innovation Compass is the app helping entrepreneurs, researchers, and innovators to navigate the innovation support system in Sweden. The user is guided to everything relevant from venture capital, business incubators, government grants and more. After going through Lund University’s accelerator program, the app is sitting at over 5 000 downloads and now has a web version too. Recently, they …

“There are 2 main views, both well qualified.  One is the venture capital situation in the US, which says that VCs do much more than provide capital – they help companies grow.  Another view is that more than 95% of VCs add 0 value to companies, and perhaps 70 or 80% add negative value.” This is how Bakhrom Ibragimov of …

Peak, the successful UK-based brain training app, backed in part by Creandum, has launched in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden with localised versions to the native languages of each country. Peak is the app that trains your cognitive function with challenging and fun games, exercising skills such as memory, focus, attention, problem solving, and mental agility. They also offer non-traditional games …

An intensive 10-week program is going to take place starting in May at Sweden’s prized startup hub SUP46. A startup fund called 500 Nordics is helping to propel and cement Stockholm’s reputation as a leading place for startup growth by teaming up with Sweden’s most active early-stage investor, Almi Invest. “We love to support 500Startups coming to Sweden and see …

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 …

Based on input from some of the top representatives in the Mobile and IoT industry, including Samsug, Qualcomm Ventures, and Motorola, SV House TV has compiled an infographic of what investments are hot with early stage corporate investors in 2016.

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 …

Startup Fest Europe takes place in the Netherlands from 24 – 28 May and aims to bring the world together and help startups grow faster. With more than 28 events will take place in 14 cities across 5 days, Netherlands will transform into the center of the global startup community. These are the hard facts. The real fun is to …

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. …

The Danish startup Planday has closed a $14 million (DKK 93 million) investment lead by the  Indinvest and Sweden’s Creandum. The investment will be used to strengthen Planday’s growth in the US and UK – and build more presence in the European market. Planday has developed an online roster planning system for all types of businesses who use a flexible …

In a male dominated industry women excel in the world of investing.  Read on to learn why women make better investors than men. The world has changed a lot in the last 50 years; many industries that were once exclusively dominated by men have become more transparent and equal to both genders where applicants compete on their abilities. However as …