Masonry Layout

It isn’t only entrepreneurs who sabotage great business ideas by making stupid mistakes. Investors are just as guilty. Last week at Oslo Innovation Week, we talked with Jeanne Sullivan of Starvest Partners, about the 5 stupid mistakes entrepreneurs make over and over again. Of course, as an entrepreneur, “You have to know what to do and how to do it, …

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) …

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, …

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 …

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 …

Inspired by SXSW, Reeperbahn Festival is Germany’s largest club festival and since its debut in 2006 it has grown to become one of the most important meeting places for the music industry worldwide. In 2009, the organizers introduced a business and startup space at the conference and has partnered with Hamburg Startups to highlight the local and international startup scene …

Daniel Mierzwinski is 26 years and runs the successful Instagram-startup Sponsta. But before his success, he hit rock bottom. Hear how he picked himself up and how the experience has given him a whole new outlook on life. “I have always had a great passion to create,” says the 26-year-old product manager in Sponsta when we begin the interview. “Not …

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- …

In nine years, Mattias Ljungman, co-founder of Atomico alongside Niklas Zennström, has built a Nordic-flavoured,  London headquartered investment company that already has some impressive exits under its belt. Think Supercell. Originally published in #NordicMade magazine by Tarmo Virki of CoFounder Magazine. Ljungman works closely with teams like Truecaller and Klarna, while also leading global operations of Atomico, which now includes …

Gulnaz Khusainova, founder of EasySize, uses big data to know your body size better than you do. Originally written in #NordicMade Magazine, August 25th, 2015. The Nordic countries are booming with fashion technology startups like Son of A Tailor, Miinto, Fits. me, The Cloakroom, Heelosophy or EasySize. EasySize is the Copenhagen-based, data-driven technology startup that digs into online-retailers databases to …

Church communication platform Churchdesk announced on August 20th that they have raised an investment round of almost 14 million.  The round was led by venture capital company Mangrove Capital Partners.  By Tina Søndergaard Thorsen   The Danish startup Churchdesk,  established in 2012, has raised $2 million dollars from venture capital company Mangrove Capital Partners, which is located in the UK. …

Kasper Kim Smidt is the new COO in the Copenhagen office community Founders House, located in  Startup Village CPH.  The new COO is only 25, but already has an impressive resume behind him. And he only looks forward. By Josephine Maria Hansen I meet Kasper Kim Smidt at Islands Brygge in Copenhagen’s  Founders House,  a part of the larger startup …

There are not enough female tech entrepreneurs, says Camilla Ley Valentin, former winner of Ivækst’s Female Entrepreneur of the Year award. And she has a few ideas about why that is. Read her top 5 pieces of advice for women who dream of taking the plunge into entrepreneurship. By Josephine Maria Hansen According to Camilla Ley Valentin, CCO and co-founder of …