News

After a turbulent year that saw markets riled, commodities plunge, and currencies wither against the dollar, many expected the American dollar to come back out as the top currency in 2015. Instead, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin is being heralded as the best performing currency.  Does this mean everyone is poised to get on board with bitcoin?  Not yet. On the face …

Nowadays, the apps on your smartphone today are far more likely to be created in Stockholm or Sweden than in Silicon Valley. If asked most people would assume these businesses are American or British creations, but they’d be wrong.While they may have now moved the bulk of their staff to those countries, these businesses are flag bearers of the Nordic …

The latest figures from the Danish Business Authority reveal that the distribution between men and women engaging in entrepreneurship has remained constant since 2001, with 1 out of every 3 entrepreneurs being female. An entrepreneur is statistically defined as a person who creates new business in non-agricultural industries, meaning re-launches, acquisitions and the like are not counted. In Denmark, there …

Iceland’s Frumbjörg, started by Brandur Karlsson in cooperation with Sjálfsbjörg, the Icelandic national federation of the disabled, is an Innovation Center for Mobility. The initiative’s goal is to provide the disabled with the opportunities for employment and develop innovations within the healthcare and social sectors. The social entrepreneurship venture is meant to provide individuals with disabilities office space and guidance …

This week, Forbes released their annual “30 under 30” list of young talent, and 5 Swedes made the cut. The list, which totals 600 people in 20 different categories, is an annual compilation of young global talent.  The categories listed include e-commerce, enterprise tech, gaming, and finance. Although the Nordics (and Europe as a whole) were far outnumbered by the …

In the United States, startup companies that are valued at over a billion dollars in the very short term are called “unicorn” companies. Uber and Airbnb are two well-known companies to have received this designation. Now, Norwegian multinational Schibsted wants to build it’s own “unicorns”. In a stock exchange announcement, Frode Eilertsen, of Schibsted’s Media Group’s EVP Strategy and Digital …

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 …

Entrepreneurs will have new opportunities to follow technological developments when the world-renowned Silicon Valley-based think tank Singularity University opens a Danish chapter in December, based in Copenhagen. Singularity University is among the world’s leading institutions in exponential technology and dissemination of knowledge on how to ensure a sustainable future for both businesses and communities by understanding the rapid development of …

Crowdsourcing Week (CSW), a platform for promoting the crowd economy, has launched their own equity crowd-funding campaign. The goal of the campaign is to increase their e-learning and consulting offerings, to spread crowd-sourcing how-to to a wider audience. This includes an online educational program to teach businesses about the crowd economy While the current CSW community is in over 50 …

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 …

Keeduu is a new learning solution, which combines official primary education curriculum with gaming in a unique way. With an official launch to the public at Slush 2015, Keeduu presented a solution aimed at schools which brings education into the digital era in an easy and simple manner. By combining a game, textbook, videos, assignments and educational exercises, Keeduu wants to …

The Danish startup Bellmetric has just launched a new platform designed to increase conversion rates on websites. The platform makes it easier to identify when visitors to a site need a little push in the right direction. According to Janus Lindau, the CEO of Bellmetric, many marketers are not working to personalize the visitor experience on their websites. Bellmetric has …

The NYC based StartUp Health, a global digital health organization boasting the world’s largest portfolio of companies.  Yesterday, the Finnish Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, Finpro, and Team Finland announced the launch of StartUp Health Finland. StartUp Health Finland will be based at the Health Innovation Village in the Finnish Capital Helsinki, which houses a collection of Nordic health tech …

Today,global venture capital seed fund 500 Startups announced the launch of a $15 million fund to invest in early stage Nordic startups. In anticipation of the fund, the company has already invested in several Nordic companies across the region: Tagbeat, Filmgrail, and Socius in Norway, Pacemaker, Brisk.io, Proleads and Vint in Sweden, EasySize and Iconfinder in Denmark, and YouApp in …

The previous Jubii CEO, Thomas Rimington, has joined the board of the digital marketing company Gravity4 and has become the new CFO/COO in Europe. Gravity4 has just acquired the two Danish companies EuroAds and Conyak, and with Thomas’ involvement, Gravity4 aims to reach a European turnover at 400 million DKK in 2016. Within the last six weeks Gravity4 has acquired two …

In Call of Duty publisher Activition’s largest acquisition since buying Blizzard, the publisher has now acquired Swedish Candy Crush maker King.com for $5.9 billion. It’s only a bit over a year ago that Microsoft acquired Minecraft creator Mojang for $2.5 billion, but today, Activision smashed that record-high acquisition, as it announced that it will soon own all of King, including …

A way of making safe purchases on the second hand-market is finally here. Swiftcourt is launching an unique service that gives you the possibility of securing your deal. By signing a sales contract using Swiftcourt, a dissatisfied buyer gets the right to dispute the purchase in case something goes wrong. Losing a few hundred euros or more to a seller …

Working in the air force, two officers have developed a platform that delivers professional drone solutions within photo and video shoots in one overall solution. It has only been a couple of months since Christian Clemmensen Møller and Klaus Wolfsberg Kastrup launched their business: Dronops.dk. With advanced drones as a platform, Dronops delivers professional drone solutions for photo and video …

In the eight years since its inception, the SXSW Startup Accelerator competition has helped to propel many startups. The accelerator is essentially a global showcase for startups, and provides a platform for entrepreneurs to present the latest ideas in sectors as diverse as fintech, wearables, and entertainment. Of the 305 companies who participated in SXSW Accelerator between 2009 and 2015, …

The Nordic startup scene is high on potential, but low on global recognition. A group of Nordic startup and tech writers have decided to work together to promote startups and entrepreneurs from the region. Earlier this year, Nordic Innovation invited some regional tech writers to come to Copenhagen and discuss how they could collaborate to promote local startups and entrepreneurs …