2015 REPORT
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A LETTER FROM THE CEO
Dear Friends, Thank you for being a part of this year’s Nordic Startup Awards. With its third time running, NSA has reached even bigger heights and we are happy to share our accomplishments with you in this report. The Startup Awards started as a concept in 2012 to provide a spotlight focus to startups in the Nordic region. We firmly believe that in the Nordic Startup scene, nationality is not important. But the exchange of talent and technology is crucial. We want to support this by gathering and also celebrating the Nordic ecosystem. We want the Nordic startup- scene to be comparable to the scenes in London and Berlin, and we believe the best way to do this, is by closer co-operation by this Awards series. The awards stand to represent the entire startup ecosystem - from the startups themselves to the people behind them, and the organisations that work alongside the ecosystem to make the great things possible. Nordic Startup Awards 2015 was powered by Nordic Innovation and held in Helsinki, Finland with Arctic Startup as our hosts. It was a marvellous end to a great award season with 650 attendees from across the region. ecosystem. We would not have been able to have such a successful season without the support from our amazing sponsors and partners - public and private. So thank you once again. See you again next year! Kim Balle CEO and Co-Founder
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Awards The 2015 Nordic Startup Awards featured 10 categories representing startups, individuals and ecosystem supporters. We had 22 starstudded jury members ranging from top entrepreneurs to investors and ecosystem supporters. All this led to 50 national winners and 10 regional winners. Events For the first time ever, every Nordic country held a National event for the National Finals gathering a whopping 1800 attendees in all. Our Grand Final was held in Helsinki, Finland by Arctic Startup after Arctic 15 and gathered 650 attendees and finalists from all the Nordic countries. Reach This year also marked the break of a new record for us at Nordic Startup Awards: nearly 15000 votes and a staggering 550 nominations across all categories. Award Categories Startups • Startup of the Year • Best Newcomer • Best Bootstrapped • Best social tech Individuals • Founder of the Year • Developer Hero • Startup journalist Ecosystem supporter • Best professional investor • Best Accelerator • Best Office Space
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OVERVIEW The Nordic Startup Awards are a series of awards committed to celebrating Nordic ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit across the startup ecosystem. Though only started in 2012, Nordic Startup Awards has now grown to build the Global Startup Awards (GSA) with the aim of connecting regions on a global level. The Global Startup Awards include Nordic Startup Awards, Central European Startup Awards (2014) and our latest addition in 2015, ASEAN Startup Awards. Global Startup Awards has two major goals: • Connecting, celebrating and supporting national, regional and global ecosystems • Gathering data about these ecosystems and creating a map for everyone to use. The Awards are carried out in two rounds. First, national semi-finals are held in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Then, semi-finalists move on to the Grand Finale and compete to become the region’s champions. The Grand Finale is a great chance to network and gain international exposure. For each of all the Nordic countries for NSA there is a country partner organisation that is responsible for the national event and marketing. It owns the exclusive right to represent NSA. A CPO can work with local partners. Here are our country partners: Trends Online - Denmark Startup Sweden - Sweden Startup Norway - Norway Klak Innovit - Iceland Arctic Startup - Finland
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COUNTRY PARTNERS
Trends Online Denmark Trendsonline.dk is the niche media for digital entrepreneurs and startups in Denmark. We focus on early stage digital entrepreneurship and startups across all industries and we help the world understand how startups are going to change the way we work and live.
Startup Sweden Sweden Startup Sweden is the gateway to the Swedish Startup Ecosystem. We aim to help entrepreneurs and investors investigate the Swedish startup scene.
Startup Norway Norway Startup Norway’s mission is to put Norway’s startup scene on the international startup map. Startup Norway believes that increasing attention towards our region to international journalists, investors and customers will help Norwegian startups to scale and grow internationally.
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COUNTRY PARTNERS
Klak Innovit Iceland Klak Innovit is a non-profit, privately owned startup center, which purpose is to accelerate businesses for high growth and to connect Icelandic entrepreneurs with leading industry experts, and the world's most successful startup ecosystems.
Arctic Startup Finland ArcticStartup is an independent technology blog that reports on startups and growth entrepreneurship from the Nordic and Baltic countries. Their goal is to provide exceptional coverage of the news and trends needed to support a developed entrepreneurship community in Northern Europe.
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FINALISTS National Finalists Category
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Finalnd
Iceland
Startup Of The Year
Kahoot!
Lifesum
Falcon Social
Seriously
Bókun
Newcomer
Unacast
Lookback
Unipegma
Smartly
Mekano Ehf.
Best Office Space
Mesh
Knackeriet
Startupcity
Startup Sauna
Kpmg Reon Tech
Investor
Foundersfo und
Creandum
Accelerace Invest
Reaktor Polte
Sigurður Arnljótsson
Accelerator
Tinc Silicon Valley
Sting
Next Step Challenge
Startup Reykjavík
Founder Of The Year
Johan Brand
Johan Attby
Christian Wylonis
Startup Journey By Boost Turku Kristo Ovaska
Georg Lúðvíksson
Social
Superplus
Snailday
Be My Eyes
Funzi
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Journalist
Maria Amelie
Neil Murray
Greg Anderson
Þórður Snær Júlíusson
Developer Hero:
Simen Sommerfeldt
Stefan Lundell & Olle Aronsson Martina Elm
Jacob Tjørnholm
Jari Jaanto
Kristján Ingi Mikaelsson
Bootstrapp ed
Dirtybit
Minfarm
Washa
Ninchat
Modio
Grand Finalists Category
Finalist
Country
Startup of the Year
Falcon Social
Denmark
Newcomer
UNACAST
Norway
Best Office Space
MESH
Norway
Investor
Creandum
Sweden
Founder of the year
Startup Reykjavik Kristo Ovaska
Social
Be My Eyes
Denmark
Journalist
Neil Murray
Denmark
Developer Hero:
Martina Elm
Sweden
Bootstrapped
DIRTYBIT
Sweden
Accelerator
Iceland Finland
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OUR REACH This year’s instalment of Nordic Startup Awards was bigger in not just categories and events but also in adding value to our sponsors. We were able to reach an even bigger audience across our vibrant Nordic ecosystem and make our Awards show the event of the year. Here are some of our numbers.
Social Media Facts FB likes: 4000+ Twitter followers: 1000+ 
 Reach During Award Season (March-May 2015): Average Facebook Daily Reach: 1804 Cumulative Facebook Reach: 159000+ Web Page Views: 68000+
Content Facts Number of photos: 5000+ Number of video produced 100+
Media Facts Number of Nordic Articles: 20 Number of International Articles : 4
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