Nordic early stage investment recovering based on bullish mood at Arctic15
There was a bullish attitude among attendees at this year’s online version of the Arctic15 startup event that investment in Northern European startups was picking up despite a second wave of COVID19 across the region.
With one of the main themes of the event being cross-border angel investing, several new angel investment syndicates were established to boost funding opportunities for startup attendees. As many as 10 startups are expected to raise funding from the “Syndicates” initiative organized by Arctic15.
Linda Emelianov from Helsinki Business Hub, who was responsible for the angel program of the event, said in a press release:
“We had a very international program, including Israel’s best-known angel investor, Yossi Vardi, which was very well received. I am very pleased to report that the angel syndicates we created are activating investment talks with as many as ten startups. We are actively involved in the negotiation process after the event to facilitate closing as many of these investments as possible. ”
Arctic15 exceeded goals
Arctic15 online gathered more than 1,300 participants, including more than 500 startups and 450 investors. Jan Ameri, CEO of Arctic15, said:
“The online environment is very challenging for an event organizer but we still boldly set a target of 1,000 attendees, 300 investors and 3,000 new connections. We’re delighted that we exceeded these goals with participants having more than 2,000 one-to-one meetings creating 5,500 new connections on our Deal Room Events platform. We look forward to hearing about new deals and investments in the coming weeks and months, initiated from these new connections .”
Pitch competition showcased female-led startups
The Arctic15 Pitching Competition, carried out in cooperation with the NewCo Helsinki Accelerator, attracted a great deal of interest when more than 150 startups from the Nordic and Baltic countries applied, eyeing for early-stage investment.
The winner in the very tight final of the pitching competition was the Estonian, BidrentoPro, founded in 2019, which has created a system for managing rental properties. The second place was taken by the Latvian Jeff App and the third spot was claimed by the Finnish startup Supervisor.com. It was noteworthy that as many as nine of the 15 finalists were female-led startups, as was the winner represented by Natalja Napsep.The Arctic15 event itself, which evolved originally from a Pitching Competition showcasing the best 15 startups from across the Nordic and Baltic regions, has grown significantly in recent years strengthening its reputation as one of the most important events in Europe for connecting investors and startups.
