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The two Danish NGOs, the Children’s Fund and the Maternity Foundation have just received 4.2 million kroner to reduce the number of mothers and infants who die during and after birth in refugee camps in Ethiopia. The Danish-developed Safe Delivery, developed by the Maternity Foundation, will provide 50 local midwives in seven Ethiopian refugee camps with clinical training and teaching …

In March 2017, #nordicmade companies took over SXSW at the #nordicmade booth.  With a helpful boost from the Rising North fund, the #nordicmade program included a pitch night, an investor dinner, a partnership with the John Lennon Educational Tourbus and a SaunaBus from Finland. However, it was a challenge for the Nordics to stand out in a sea of thousands …

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 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 …

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 …

Kristin Skogen Lund, director of the NHO, Norway’s leading business lobby, thinks Norwegians have been in the comfort zone for far too long, and that change in the workplace is necessary. “There are a lot of changes we are now facing, and everything is dependent on how we choose to tackle them.  We are in this epoch of change, and …

In May 2015, Adrien Vetterli came up with an idea sparked by a recently viral story from the Netherlands where a man decided to clean trash along a polluted waterway bit by bit, every day on his way to work. Collecting garbage from natural areas wasn’t anything new to him as he had participated in environmental reporting efforts in his …

Icelandic startup KeyWe is creating an app that ties together an emotional, visual, and logical approach to learning. Olafur Stefansson and Halldor Thorsteinsson are brothers in law and co-founders of the ed-tech startup KeyWe. I’m meeting with them at  the Innovation House in Seltjarnarnes, Iceland for a chat about their startup. They arrive on time. Composed and confident, with a spark …

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. …

The pitching competition at the massive startup conference Slush is high stakes and high pressure.  After some stressful preparations, I was called onto stage to pitch my start, EdTech Foundry, in front of an audience in hopes of winning an investment. Last night ended on a high note, and I felt ready to pitch. But in the morning, will all …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Flic is a wireless shortcut button that allows you to perform smart actions on your phone with a simple click. Flic is a Swedish startup that is making life even more simple for smart phone users. With a simple click of a Flic button, users have access to a variety of different functions. These include controlling lights, playing music, taking …

There are two things that are universally true for entrepreneurs – they need to market their products and they are extremely busy and stressed out! Now there is a co-working space that supports them in dealing with both of these challenges by providing them with tranquility and the opportunity to learn and grow their business through clever, high-end marketing hacks. …

Falcon Social offer a unified software as a service(SaaS) platform for social media engaging, publishing, listening, measuring, and management. Their goal is to help their clients explore the full potential of social media marketing, and instill the right social media thinking in their employees. Their social media management tool unifies organically developed products on a single platform, and makes it …

The Swedish media, Breakit, have interviewed Daniel Ek, Founder of Spotify, about why he is not worried about Spotify’s losses, the future of the pharmaceutical industry, what he thinks about the lack of women in startup companies and the lack of housing opportunities in Stockholm. It has been a few years since Daniel Ek lined up for a longer interview with the …

The vacation rental portal, SunnyRentals.com, was bought last year by their competitor Vacasol. The acquisition came after SunnyRentals has had a deficit for several years, but that does not mean the investment was bad. SunnyRentals, founded in 2009, has been acquired by Vacasol, which has facilitated online booking of vacation rentals throughout Europe. The Danish Vacation rental portal SunnyRentals.com had …

On Nordic Startup Bits we try to filter the startup scene and we will give our reader the best from the week on the social media, Twitter. Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, gives advice about how Spotify got to a 50/50 male/female ratio Martin LeBlanc, CEO of Iconfinder, gives his version of why Danes are productive. It might be easier …