NordicMade 2017 by Tarmo Virki

SAN FRANCISCO APRIL 2017

#NORDICMADE

CONTRIBUTORS

#NordicMade

With Special Thanks to...

Jessica Blechingberg

Katja Kotala

Michael Bak

With a strong interest in impact and foodtech startups shaping the world she also has a passion for building an even stronger Nordic community.

Community Coordinator and Programme Manager at Nordic Innovation House in Palo Alto, also marketing assistant at Modulight Inc

On a mission to accelerate the Danish and Nordic tech communities and show the world why we do it better!

Slush

Nordic Innovation House

a @jessicableching

#CPHFTW

a @michaelbak

Paula Salomaa

Lukas Gräf

Salóme Guðmundsdóttir

Passionate for building bridges between Nordic tech comapnies and the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem.

Membership Manager SUP46: Enthusiastic and forward-thinking person who loves the Swedish and Nordic startup scene, helping companies scale and grow their businesses.

The CEO of Icelandic Startups, which mainly focuses on accelerating new businesses for high growth and empowering the Icelandic Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.

a @lsgraef

a @jessicableching

Charlotte Danielsson

Tarmo Virki

Matthew Smith

Passionate believer in the power of grassroots networks to build bridges.

Experienced media professional, Editor of CoFounder Magazine and ArcticStartup. Keen on the startup scene, fascinated by creating anything new.

Nordic Innovation House

a @PaulaMindJump

Silicon Vikings

a @infinitilaw

SUP46

Icelandic Startups

CoFounder

a @virki

#NORDICMADE / 2017

A South African spotting unicorns in the fjords, engaging investors and empowering more startups in the fastest growing Nordic startup ecosystem. a @mattcsmith1

CoFounder Slush Special

26m PEOPLE live in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland

... that's about the same as Shanghai

Europe's first internet-age decacorn

$10.2bn

24m PEOPLE

funding rounds in the Nordics include at least one international investor

In 2016,

In 2016 there were

was invested into Nordic startups

investments into Nordic startups

$2.7bn

30% 708

Source : The Nordic Web

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55º 40' 33.95" N 12º 34' 6.01" E

INTRODUCTION All Eyes on Nordic Tech

he Nordic tech ecosystem has never been more intriguing than it is today. Although there are only 26 million people living in the Nordics, the Nordic countries are currently producing the most billion-dollar companies per capita after Silicon Valley. During the past decade, world-class technology companies such as Skype, Spotify, Supercell, Zendesk, Unity, Klarna and King have all risen from the area previously known mostly for its cold and dark winters and aurora borealis. Now all eyes are firmly on Nordic tech. The Nordic startup ecosystem is growing stronger and becoming more united in order to further accelerate the success of the regions. The scene is constantly welcoming new startups, emerging VC players and new events, as well as seeing a record number of exits. Since 2005, 9 percent of all global billion dollar exits have come from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. It is an astonishing number, considering that the rest of Europe accounts for only 8 percent of the world’s billion dollar exits, despite having the remaining 97 percent of the continent’s population. The pace of Nordic development has been tremendous, and it is not showing

ILKKA KIVIMÄKI

Chairman of Slush, Partner at Inventure

signs of slowing down. In 2016, 708 investments and $2.7 billion were made into Nordic startups - indicating that the flow of investments into Nordic companies from around the world is not stopping any time soon.The recent success stories of Nordic tech companies have also paved the way for new generations. Based on a survey conducted by Slush and Atomico, almost 90% of university students feel that it is culturally accepted to become an entrepreneur. Nordic talent and experience are currently flowing into the startup scene like never before. This means that the Nordic tech scene is likely to only become more interesting in the upcoming years. But what has made the Nordics so special within a decade? While we are trying to answer that question in this magazine, Skype founder Niklas Zennström hit home at Slush 2015: “It’s a competitive advantage to be from the small countries. If you have that global mindset from day one you are better equipped for tomorrow.” This spring, the same global mindset is bringing Slush to the US, with ten Nordic companies showcased in San Francisco. We sincerely hope you enjoy reading this magazine, and get to interact with the Nordic community in San Francisco! � #NORDICMADE / 2017

CoFounder Slush Special

59ยบ 19' 45.56" N 18ยบ 04' 6.89" E

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37º 26' 43.8" N 122º 09' 45.94" W

NORDIC INNOVATION HOUSE

Five Countries – One Mission PAULA SALOMAA

or Nordic companies, taking the first steps of moving a business to the US can seem like a challenge. This served as an inspiration for establishing Nordic Innovation House, a soft-landing space for Nordic startups in Palo Alto. Since 2014 the Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and DenIF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE OR BECOME mark – have collaborated with the a member, go to the website aim of lowering the barriers for US www.nordicinnovationhouse.com or entry and helping startups grow email Nordic Innovation House at their business in Silicon Valley. post@nordicinnovationhouse.com There are several ways to benefit from the Nordic Innovation House offering. Having a virtual office gives a company the benefits of limited access to the office space and meeting rooms in Palo Alto as well as the opportunity to use the address in their business. With a permanent desk, the company gets full access to these services. Becoming a member can also be beneficial for investors and

bigger companies, who want to be connected to the dynamic startup scene. In addition to having a place to work and receive mail, it is crucial to make connections and explore the local business culture. Nordic Innovation House offers opportunities for networking at monthly events and participation in educational workshops about the US system, as well as access to the wider Silicon Valley ecosystem. Before taking the first step of establishing an office, a startup also has the chance to apply to one of the amazing accelerator programs, to see if they have what it takes to come to the US. Organised twice a year, TINC is a 4-week intensive accelerator program for startups wanting to validate their business model and get access to known mentors in Silicon Valley. The REACH program is tailored for research based startups and is organised once a year. In addition to these programs, Nordic Innovation House organises activities in specific areas like Health and Clean tech, which are open to all Nordic companies in these fields. �

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CoFounder Slush Special

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TAPPING NORDIC VALUES IN THE CRAZY LOTTERY BUSINESS Meet Nordic Makers' Hampus Jakobsson

CoFounder Slush Special

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“We really try to work with the founders.”

ordic Makers is a new investment firm of Nordic angels, founders and ex-CEOs who have built up companies like Zendesk or Unity Technologies. We talked with Nordic Makers’ Hampus Jakobsson on the sidelines of the TechChill conference in Riga. Jakobsson was co-founder of Malmö-based mobile UI firm TAT, which was sold to Blackberry in 2010.

How was Nordic Makers born? We started angel investing individually, syndicating occasionally. We syndicated with a lot of different people, but it just felt natural. All of us seemed to have the same value ground: we like the Nordic values, we like the way people treat their employees, we like the way people approach money – if people are buying huge Ferraris for the founders but the employees don’t get anything, that’s not good. We also love the Nordic view on product. A lot of people in the Nordics are really product focused: they craft really good products, sometimes to their demise because they are not that great at marketing and sales, but they do create great products. We really like that. We started realising that the problem with being an angel investor is, firstly, that you cannot do huge deals. You could, but you would do one deal – that’s it. You have a limit to how much money you can deploy. Secondly, you have to do the due diligence yourself. You might know one area, but how do you know all the aspects? So I always introduced the company to other angels. When I found a company I liked, I would go to another angel and say, “you know a lot about this, could you have a look at them?” They would look at it and then say, “I like them, I am in for 15,000.” The third part of this is the back office activity – all the agreements. We started saying with a couple of friends that we should get a joint back office. Then we realised that we should start a group where the only thing we have is that we promise that we don’t invest in anything unless we

tell everybody else. So Nordic Makers is a group of ten angels – Danes, Icelandic, Swedes – sadly only those nationalities. We don’t have people in Norway, we don’t have people in the Baltics, we don’t have people in Finland, which is very sad. We get a lead and bounce it around internally. We hired a front-end person – he makes sure there is a process and no emails are forgotten, because as angels you can sometimes be scatterbrained and forget. People can have a bad experience. So we have a front-end person to make sure that doesn’t happen. We also got a back-end person who makes sure that when we say, “let’s deploy money,” we create a separate company. It’s one investor, so you don’t get five people on your cap table. You get one entity. We usually invest from maybe 60 thousand dollars, as a small deal, all the way up to 300 thousand dollars. What makes Nordic Makers special? We really try to work with the founders. Since we were early stage founders we all have different things we really love. We have two guys who really love the marketplace stuff. They are the people who say, “look at this dynamic here, you are losing people here.” There is one person who is really into hardware. He is super keen on that and can help people to think about it. I am the deep tech guy, I am a software person, I really like the technology parts and product crafting. Since I have done a lot of angel investment privately, one of the things I really enjoy doing is trying to be the founder psychologist too. Being a founder can be really lonely. I spend a lot of time just saying, “it’s lonely, that’s the way it feels. Hey, if you want to talk, just ping me.” So we created the group. I thought it was silly, but it seems to be adding value. I am kind of surprised. We created a Slack group for all the companies we have invested in. We try to make sure that they easily connect with each other and we #NORDICMADE / 2017

have done a couple of events. Personally, I would think that if Slack groups and events were the core then it would be rubbish, so for me it has been a surprise. We just had a dinner in Copenhagen. People flew in and at one table, people were saying what their biggest problems were. One guy said, “I have this product, I can sell it, it’s really awesome, it’s a hardware product, but I realised the bill of materials is very high. I am still making good money but I am wondering if I should go back to the factory and lower the bill of materials to half or if I should just crush it and sell. What should I do?” Across the table there was another hardware startup. They said, “we are not talking about cutting it to half. It should be one tenth, your bill of material is crazily high.” “What?” “Yeah! You should go to Shenzen with me. I am going next week.” So they talked on Slack and then flew into Shenzen together. I really felt that this is what it ought to be like. It really works – we had those sorts of things happen on every table. I believe we need to bring people together to talk about their actual problems. The Slack community helps them say, “hey, I remembered, one more thing,” instead of, “let’s wait until the next monthly meetup.” That’s it. What we are thinking about a lot right now – one of our headaches – is that we have larger rounds than we can manage. We have a lot of rounds that are 1 million dollars and that’s too big for us. One of the things we are looking at is whether we should have a way to deploy more money. We don’t want to have a fund, but should we allow other people to invest on the side? We have a special purpose vehicle for investments, so we could easily angel list syndicate to other angels. The other thing about that is the follow up rounds, because we might have done investment and then suddenly they raise a B round. We cannot deploy that much CoFounder Slush Special

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“Can we create crazy money per deal, or can money, but at the same time we are going to turn down 5 percent of this great round. So we defend 1 percent, but then there is that 4 percent ... so why not invite other people? That’s one of our headaches for 2017 – figuring out how we scale it. We have one potentially good inbound deal per day right now. Which is crazy. We end up investing in 1-2 a month. We have done investments in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, UK. We have not done any in Germany or France, but we could have done. I have done some privately, and others have done some privately too, but we have not done one together. What are the options for scaling? One option that everyone suggests is raising a fund. The problem with raising the fund is that the second we raise one we are trapped for 7 years. the problem I see with many funds is that the second they raise a big fund, let’s say a 50 million dollar fund, they have to deploy lots of money. You have to tell early stage people to go somewhere else because they are wasting your time. My ideal solution would be to get a family office, or someone who would really like to do tech investments but has no insight, to make a 2x investment on all our investments. We would find somebody we want to invest in, tell the other investor that we are going to invest 200 thousand dollars and then they invest 400 thousand dollars, but they almost don’t have an option to say no, because the second they do then suddenly we have to multiply. My idea is that we would have a budget. We would advise them approximately how many deals we would do and the budget, say 12 deals a year approximately and 2x 200 thousand dollars for the budget. They then put it in the bank account. They can tell us halfway through that it is going too fast or too slow, but we are going to go at our pace. That would be my ideal solution. The crazy thing is that for family offices it’s an amazing product, they just have no

insight into it so it’s really hard for them to do. A VC asked me yesterday if they could that with us – could they do 2x on every deal we do. The only problem with that is we have great relationships with a lot of VCs and we don’t want to lock ourselves in and be like an Index fund, like micro-Index or micro-Sequoia. We get a lot of deals – I think in November-December we forwarded 15 deals to VCs. We said something like, “this is awesome, but we cannot do this, this is way too big for us.” Could the solution be a pool of VCs? That is interesting – a cool idea. To do the same as we have done for VCs. Get 10 VCs to put in a small amount. That is interesting. It could just be 5, but this would protect you from becoming a mini-something. That is a nice concept. A friend of mine is a scout for Sequoia. He has about 250300 thousand dollars he can invest every year. It is technically Sequoia’s money, but it does not say Sequoia in the cap table. For him it’s a great deal, he can learn a lot of things, and Sequoia get a lot of the super-early stage deals. That is a model VCs should do in general. From a 100 million fund take 10 million, give it to 10 people and tell them they have 1 million over 3 years. They just find the unique people, like a 17-year-old in Krakow or a PhD professor in Stanford. The VC gets things they would not otherwise get. They don’t give it to the angels because they are going to invest anyway. Give it to people who have unique insights. When you talk with founders it is clear that many need capital, but many seem to be afraid of angels. I totally get why. We have written the list of things we want to change with Nordic Makers. In February, we will turn down two amazing companies. We will turn them down because the cap table is ruined by one previous investor. The crazy thing is that one of these companies we sent to Northzone and Creandum and

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CoFounder Slush Special

after 2 weeks both said, “we cannot invest because of this thing.” We told them upfront that we would like to invest, but this was a problem. I totally get that. You get one really toxic person that does not fit. The tricky thing is how to find investors who have been founders themselves. I think they are usually OK, but if you find people who have made their money in areas like oil, gas or real estate the common problem with those guys is that they either want you to run your own company or they want you to become a small big company. They want to know who is the VP of sales and where the department of sales is, but we are three people, so it’s that guy. The interesting thing is that a lot of VCs have a problem with this. They miss deals, especially in the bitcoin space, because people do tokens instead. They build a bitcoin company, then they start selling tokens, and then they make crazy amount of money on it. They don’t need VCs. The VCs are left sitting there having missed the deal. There is a company I talked to that had raised an angel round of about 150 thousand dollars and now they are thinking about raising their second round of about 100 million dollars. Their revenue is crazily big. It’s very cool for angel investors. They needed 150 thousand dollars, but that is all they needed. That is another cool thing that is happening in the world: you can build a company with about 200 thousand dollars. I totally get the problem of toxic angel investors. More people should do due diligence on their investors. The first thing I do when I am raising for the company and meet an angel investor is that I ask them how many deals they do per year. If they say one, maybe they are not really an angel investor. If they say 2 or 3 then they are an angel investor. I want to talk to a couple of their founders and I want to know why they are investing. If they say it is because it’s a great way to make cash, it is not. It

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we just make a stupid number of deals?” is like the lottery, it is crazy. If they say they want to learn stuff, like to help, be part of the journey, expand their network, that is all cool. But if they say they want to run the company or they say they had this idea themselves a couple of years ago, that is a warning – they are going to come in and take over, saying, “this is how we are going to do it.” More due diligence is needed, thinking of angels like a marriage. Any other good tips on how to do due diligence on investors? If you can talk to some of the people they have invested in. One thing is to ask is why they are investing. How can they contribute? After the deal, how do they think they can help out? There are certain investors who say they can’t really help. That can be fine, but then you all know it. The ones that are the worst say they can help with strategy. That could be really bad, but it could be also good. In those situations I dig out how operational they expect to be. How much time do they think they are going to spend on it. If they say no time at all, that’s fine. They can sit at the back of the boat. Sometimes when I meet an angel I am not totally sure and I ask them what the worst thing is that can happen. Some people respond that they could lose their money, but they are probably going to lose their money. Some people would say if the company does something shameful. I invested in a startup which was an environmentally-friendly super-cool product that made the world a lot better. And then they pivoted to be something opposite, the worst thing in the world – I thought that was the worst thing that could happen. I didn’t really want to sponsor them. But then the craziest thing happened: they got really good traction and another angel investor wanted to buy everybody’s shares. He bought my shares and I made 5x the money. It was good. It was crazy for me that there was financial return, even if it had been 1x I would have still

sold because I did not want to be in the company any more. It is a good question to ask why they are investing. The most common thing for me to say is because I like them, I think they are working on an interesting problem, I am really curious to see if it is going to work. If they are curious, that is the right attitude. The investors who say they are in it for the money should go and buy a lottery ticket. You cannot be in it for the money, you need to be in it for the thrill. What do you think of secondary market for startup investments? I think that secondary markets are cool. One common problem for a lot of startups is that they get traction and the founders are locked in. They have 99.99 percent of all their financial assets in this thing and they start to lower their risk. They start to not be as aggressive any more. I get it. This company is worth 10 million dollars and you own 50% of it. It’s 5 million dollars – why would you gamble with that? It would be crazy. At the same time, it’s bad for a growth startup. So to sell 10% of that on secondary markets – that’s 500 thousand dollars. Making 500 thousand dollars is great! Most people would say amazing. Now you can be aggressive again. The problem is that people think they can start trading too early. It is the same problem for founders as with angels. If you want to make money, you might, but if you want to make money you should move to New York and work 60 hours a week – your chances are much better. If you want to learn a lot and grow a lot, do this instead. This is amazing. I have heard of founders who would start selling the moment they could, which is dangerous. You could sell 10% of your stock – if the founder gets 100 thousand, they can suddenly buy their apartment, which is good for their family and spouse. A lot of founders have been living on breadcrumbs and noodles and their spouse is making the money. Every day they come home at 10pm and their spouse #NORDICMADE / 2017

asks why they are doing it. So when the day comes that they come home and say, “hey, we can buy the apartment,” they know why they are doing it. In my first company, if someone did a heroic job we would always buy them and their spouse a really nice dinner. Splurge on your great employees and on their spouse who usually takes the toll. I wish more people would have that opportunity. How can someone get in contact with Nordic Makers? What’s the best trick? An intro is very easy. They can email me or Benjamin – there is a form on the web page – but referrals are always the best. If you find me, or any of us, on LinkedIn and check if you know anybody. Any referral is given 10x the priority. I have had referrals of really bad startups, looked at them, and asked myself what it is. But I still spend an hour on the phone with them. Whereas if someone sends me something that is kind of interesting there is a big risk that I am going to read the email and if I don’t get it straight away I move on, which is sad. Referrals are great, they get you attention. I think more founders should just think of it as a value or volume thing. Can we create crazy money per deal, or can we just make a stupid number of deals? If you realise that, then a lot of things will fall into place. Some people say both, or a bit in-between – it could be, but it usually isn’t. A lot of times the really bad deals are the ones that have the volume of a value play, or they have value of a volume play. Volume of the value play could be nice? You do meet companies that have a really unfair advantage. You think that there are others doing it. You also realise that the second people figure it out there will be more startups. You find this crazy unicorn spot where everybody wants this thing and you can charge crazy amounts of money because nobody else has figured it out yet. That is a perfect VC case. They can deploy crazy money and take the market before anyone gets there. � CoFounder Slush Special

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AREA

Denmark enjoys a high-income mixed economy and is one of the most free in the Index of Economic Freedom.

GDP (PPP) PER CAPITA

DENMARK

16,573.61 sq mi $46,602 (19th)

DENMARK – WHERE THE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM KEEPS ON GROWING THROUGH THE COLLECTIVE ACTIONS OF OUR TECH ENTREPRENEURS. MICHAEL BAK

Capital

Copenhagen Population (2015)

5,707,251

Currency

Danish krone Head of State

Margrethe II

Official Language

Danish

CoFounder Slush Special

86%

57º 44' 26.18" N 10º 38' 4.98" E

What's Shaking? DENMARK

POPULATION WHO SPEAK ENGLISH AS SECOND LANGUAGE

he impressive growth and rapid ecosystem acceleration we’ve seen over the past few years continues to show that Denmark has become an established startup hub in the Nordics. One that continuously produces interesting value-creating tech startups. When compared to a similar period, the last 12 months have shown an impressive 89% increase in investments being made into Danish startups. On the ecosystem side, Denmark has also proven itself able to develop and build impressive networks and support for startups. In the past year, we have seen numerous new initiatives, each spawning an array of opportunities and giving proof to the idea of a growing and maturing tech community. Two of the more notable activities have been the merging of Founders House, the ‘original’ Copenhagen tech co-working space, and its Norwegian equal, MESH, creating between them a platform to reach out further into the Nordics, focusing on

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FOUNDED IN

8th Century THE DANES WERE AMONG THOSE KNOWN

as Vikings during the 8th–11th centuries and were prolific explorers and traders, from North America to the Middle East.

real estate and the future of work; and the launch of Singularity University Copenhagen (opening its doors later this year) by the founders of Dare2Mansion, only the second hub outside Silicon Valley. The latter is bound to be an important hub in the ecosystem with its many square meters of startup creative space, labs etc.. Continuing on the co-working path, we have also seen the birth of two vertical-focused co-working spaces: Copenhagen Fintech Lab, neatly located in the financial district by the harbour, and The Camp, a 300-person space located at the Tryg hq (pan-Scandinavian insurance company) with a broad focus on tech companies but a bias towards insurance and data startups. Both of these are powered by Rainmaking Loft. New conferences have come to life: Nordic.AI (ai) and GoRed (charity) among others. A new gathering of notable business angels have started to form as well, with Nordic Makers being the most prominent and several super-angels coming together from both Denmark and Sweden. Even the Danish government have started to pay attention to what is shaking in the Danish tech world, inviting founders for a National Entrepreneurship Council, as well as focusing on building a Danish model for a new digital society; #CPHFTW together with IT-Branchen recently gathered 200 founders/influencers creating a policy manifesto in just a couple of hours and gaining attention from the Prime Minister himself. This autumn, the whole of the Danish tech community comes together in a celebration of the things that make the scene so unique. Copenhagen Tech Festival 2017 will aim at gathering and promoting the biggest, baddest and boldest of tech events and conferences in the country and unite with some of our most successful startups to tell the rest of the world what is coming. A unique wave of awesome new Danish tech companies to take over the world! �

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ICELAND

Iceland is ranked the eleventh most innovative country and pre-2008 was the seventh most productive country per capita globally.

Halfway Between ICELAND

Capital

Reykjavík Population (2016)

332,529

Currency

Icelandic króna Head of State

Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson Official Language

Icelandic

AREA

39,682 sq mi GDP (PPP) PER CAPITA

$50,500 (18th)

CURIOUS CHARACTERS

64º 07' 35.47" N 21º 49' 2.78" W

ICELAND – CURRENTLY KNOWN FOR BREATHTAKING NATURE AND EXTENSIVE NATURAL RESOURCES, INFAMOUS VOLCANOES, A VIBRANT MUSIC SCENE AND THE WORLD’S STRONGEST MEN AND MOST INDEPENDENT WOMEN. IT IS NOW TIME TO SHED SOME LIGHT ON THE BOOMING STARTUP SCENE IN ICELAND. SALÓME GUÐMUNDSDÓTTIR.

he Icelandic startup scene is dynamic, dense and growing. Iceland’s tech and green energy sectors are evolving, with potential for rich and rapid growth. Popular startup sectors include Healthcare, Marine, Tourism and Creative Industries, with gaming and virtual reality in the forefront. Over 300 startup events are hosted each year with more than 3,000 people attending. For a country with a population of only slightly over 330,000 and a startup scene that’s about ten years old, that is undoubtedly evidence of where we are heading. Through different projects and platforms, a number of experienced entrepreneurs, investors and leading experts take

ICELANDIC USES

SETTLED IN

ancient letter forms in no longer used in the English alphabet.‘ð' is similar in sound to ‘th' in English ‘that.'

9th Century THE SETTLEMENT OF ICELAND IS

generally believed to have begun in the second half of the 9th century, when Norse settlers migrated across the North Atlantic.

the important role of mentors and share their knowledge, insights and networks with the emerging generation of entrepreneurs. University students become volunteers and often later become startup employees or found their own companies. Iceland has a great pool of talent with topnotch universities focusing on subjects such as computer science, engineering, technology, business and design that are intended to drive the growth of the economy in the coming years. Being an island in the North Atlantic, one of the cornerstones of the Icelandic community has been international collaboration. The capital city, Reykjavík, is ideally situated midway between the US and Europe, only a three-hour flight from Europe and five-hour flight from the US. From the start, a great emphasis has been put on international role models and cooperation has been a key success factor for our startup scene. During the last few years, Iceland has seen the emergence of multiple co-working spaces; award-winning accelerator programs; international startup conferences, such as Slush PLAY; strategic cooperation between community leaders within the Nordics; and the start of building bridges to the world’s leading startup hubs. All eyes on the startup scene IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, WE HAVE SEEN CONSID-

erably increased funding activity in Iceland, as 4 active VC funds have augmented government grants from the Technology Development fund. Crowberry Capital, a new, privately-owned VC firm, is set to finish fundraising later this year. 2015 marked a new record in venture capital investments in Iceland, with 3 of the 10 largest investments in the Nordics going to Icelandic companies. New tax incentives have recently been approved by Parliament and are planned to increase angel activity and available early-stage capital. More streamlined #NORDICMADE / 2017

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Extremes

Long History

ICELAND IS EUROPE’S MOST

ESTABLISHED IN 930, ICELAND

westerly country and is home to the world’s northern most capital city.

retains the world’s oldest continuous parliament.

processes have also been put in place and are expected to ease the way for emerging companies. The Icelandic government plans to increase the national budget in science, research and innovation in the coming years, while the Technology Development Fund, which has been the main source of funding for early stage startups, has steadily increased in size and made its organisation more streamlined and user-friendly. Furthermore, the recent removal of capital controls that were put in place after the economic collapse in 2008 is expected to increase the interest of foreign VC’s even more. Seasoned business and industry experts and service providers stand ready to take on new challenges to support new enterprises with the potential to benefit society as a whole. The largest universities put more emphasis than ever before on increasing the number of students in computer science and technology-related subjects, while more established private companies have actively approached the startup community by involving community leaders and experienced mentors in their innovation processes. High-fives and hard work

Republic

All Natural

Exports

ICELAND GAINED INDEPENDENCE

ALMOST ALL OF ICELAND’S

ICELAND’S MAIN EXPORTS ARE

from Denmark and became a republic in 1944.

energy derives from hydroelectric power and geothermal water reserves.

specialising in analysis and visual representation of data, for 13.5 million dollars. Meniga, a European leader in PFM for retail banks with multiple awards winning solutions, raised 6.5 million euros in Series A financing in mid-2013 and since then has made partnership deals with some of Europe’s largest banks, including Santander and Commerzbank. Chinese automobile giant, Geely Holding Group, made a 45.5 million dollar investment in Icelandic renewable methanol company,

Iceland is a country that embraces innovation and sparks creativity

ICELAND HAS BEEN THE CRADLE OF SOME OF THE

world’s leading enterprises, such as CCP games – one of the leaders in the field of multiplayer games (EVE online!), winning numerous awards and receiving critical acclaim worldwide. Their latest recognitions are for their pioneering intersection of gaming and virtual reality. At the end of 2015, they raised 30 million dollars to boost VR development. Other companies include Össur, a world leader in prosthetic solutions, Marel, a leading global provider of advanced equipment and systems for the food processing industry. The Icelandic payment startup Memento was chosen Best of Show at Finovate 2017. In 2014, Qlik acquired DataMarket, a company

Carbon Recycling International (CRI) in early 2015; Verne Global, a UK-based data centre company, landed 98 million dollars in Series D funding in the same quarter. International investors have said that they like to invest in Icelandic companies because of the great team spirit and dedication to the idea. Sólfar, veterans from CCP games, made the headlines when they announced their partnership with RVX, bringing together a stellar team from the game and film industries to deliver an industry-first experience in VR: Everest VR. They secured a 2 million euro seed round

2017 / #NORDICMADE

CoFounder Slush Special

fish and fish products, animal products, aluminum and diatomite.

from Nordic and Asian investors during Q4 2015. Other notable startups include Activity Stream, developing software for businesses that monitor and analyse business data to help companies make the right decisions. GreenQloud, the gateway to better infrastructure management, received a sizeable investment in Q3 2016 and signed a partnership agreement with VMware, the world’s largest cloud and virtualisation software in the US. Zymetech is the global leader in the therapeutic application of marine-derived enzymes. Through partnerships, their products are marketed and sold in several markets in North America, Europe and Asia, with ample opportunities for further market growth. Cooori, an online language-learning app that challenges traditional teaching methods, is on the rise. So is Videntifier, a large-scale video identification that is being used by Interpol and investigators all over the world to identify victims and offenders of child sexual abuse and link investigations together. The cross-platform game engine Unity has an Icelandic founder and so does the new Vivaldi browser, with more than a million downloads in the first few months, as well as the developer Klang Games, veterans of CCP games, which was funded by London Venture Partners. Numerous startup awards and acknowledgements for innovation and entrepreneurship are given each year and the media scrambles to publish the latest news. With all lights on the boiling startup scene, increased coverage of the importance of innovation for the growth of the Icelandic economy and the amazing success stories, role models have been made more visible than ever before, encouraging new ventures. We look forward to welcoming interested parties to Iceland and encourage you to visit www. icelandicstartups.com to view a visual guide to the startup ecosystem in Iceland, a country that embraces innovation and sparks creativity. �

63° 23' 35.39" N -19° 07' 21.00" W

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AREA

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FINLAND

130,666 sq mi

Finland has a per capita output equal to that of other European economies such as France, Germany, Belgium, or the UK.

GDP (PPP) PER CAPITA

$42,654

THE FINNISH ANNUAL 'DAY OF FAILURE'

60º 10' 11.48" N 24º 56' 18.16" E

“The place where I want to be” FINLAND

FINLAND – WITH SUPERCELL AND ANGRY BIRDS AS HOUSEHOLD NAMES ACROSS THE GLOBE, FINLAND IS ON THE RISE. TARMO VIRKI

Capital

Helsinki

Population (2015)

5,486,125

Currency

Euro

Head of State

Sauli Niinistö

Official Language

Finnish, Swedish

CoFounder Slush Special

hether you are building a startup in Europe or you seek to invest in one, it is almost certain that in November you are heading to Helsinki. It is the place to be – it is dark and cold, and in the airport you can crash into hordes of Finns rushing to leave the country for better weather in Southern Europe. At the same time, the startup community is flying in. According to the latest research, this is one of the top 5 innovation hubs globally, alongside New York, London, Barcelona and Amsterdam. Moreover, it is not just Helsinki – the Nordic capitals are showing the way for the rest of the Old Continent. Appropriately named, Slush is the top startup event for the whole continent – the big investors across the globe are here screening the startups who dream of building the next unicorn. Local examples that it can be done are in front of their eyes: over the last five years, Supercell and Angry Birds have become 2017 / #NORDICMADE

SETTLED IN

... 9000BC

FINLAND WAS SETTLED IMMEDIATELY

after the last ice age, which ended in 9000 BC, then it was a part of the Kingdom of Sweden from the 13th century to 1809.

OCTOBER

household names across the globe. Most certainly they are also intimately involved at Slush – Supercell has been the key sponsor for years and Peter “Mighty Eagle” Vesterbacka is also one of the founders of Slush. This has all happened in less than ten years. How on earth has Helsinki become the place to be? It is just a few decades since Monthy Python poked fun at Finland singing: “You’re so sadly neglected / And often ignored / A poor second to Belgium / When going abroad.” Now, the leaders of Britain are travelling to Helsinki to gain insight into the local startup scene and public-private partnerships in the sector. For example, Finland’s most prominent accelerator, Startup Sauna, is publicly funded and takes no equity in the startups. So is it the state money which has to be there to boost the local ecosystem? Not necessarily, says a study by Nesta and Accenture, which showed that the role of cities and their ecosystems is much more crucial for striving entrepreneurs than the statewide support mechanisms. The high ranking of smaller cities like Helsinki shows how the quality of relationships can be just as critical in enabling an active policy environment for innovation and entrepreneurship. “The relative strength of the region in the Infrastructure policy dimension, how the city government has optimised the city space to encourage innovation, highlights how all four Nordic cities have recognised the importance of foundational digital and physical connectivity. Entrepreneurs need to be able to move around the city with ease, and be able to access the high-speed internet while they do so,” the report said. Mobile at Heart WHEN

LOOKING

THE

ENABLERS

FOR

THIS

change, there is clearly the elephant in the room – Nokia. The Finnish company dominated the global mobile phone market for

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Chilly Toes ONE QUARTER OF FINLAND’S

territory lies north of the Arctic Circle.

Beat the Heat

Preppers

FINNS ARE FIERCELY OBSESSIVE

FINLAND IS TOTALLY SELF-

about saunas ... It cannot be overstated how much they love saunas.

sufficient in meat, grains, and dairy products.

Lake Country

Exports

THE NATION OF FINLAND

FINLAND’S MAIN EXPORTS ARE

contains more than 180,000 lakes.

a decade before iPhone and Android killed its business. (The conglomerate itself is doing fine after refocusing on the telecom equipment market.) In its glory days, dozens of subcontractors made a living from Nokia business, and the success of classic models like the basic Nokia 3310, a version of which was reborn in 2017 through the N95 “multimedia computer”, gave deep insight into the mobile sector and international business to thousands of Finns. The links to today’s mobile gaming stars are almost direct – Nokia had a big ambition to become the mobile gaming platform of choice for the whole world and invested millions, if not billions, into that. The handover from Nokia to startups happened during Slush 2013 when

machinery, equipment, chemicals, metals, timber, pulp and paper.

Supercell opened its offices at the former Nokia Research Centre in downtown Helsinki. By then Stephen “Burning Platform” Elop, the Canadian CEO that struggling Nokia had brought in from Microsoft to deliver the final blow to itself, had ramped down most of the Nokia phone business. Being in Finland it is kind of natural that the Supercell founders built their first massive success – mobile gaming firm Sumea – focusing on making games for Nokia phones. Moreover, links between Nokia and startups are clearly not limited to gaming. For example, niche phone-maker Jolla was born on the ruins of Nokia’s ambitious Meego software project and the SportsTracker app used to be part of Nokia. In addition to events and media and successful gaming startups, the Finnish scene has benefitted significantly from the creation of Aalto University – one of the first merging a technical university with a business school and design university. Aalto was the birthbed of AaltoES – a grassroots organisation founded by students in 2009 after their field trip to MIT. In the early years it was the host of Slush and in 2010 it started a boot camp, which grew into the Startup Sauna and Summer of Startups event. The organisation continues to host many events in the Sauna building and elsewhere in town. Listing exciting startups is a daunting task – we suggest you log on to Arctic-Startup.com and check them out. A lot is going on in health, cleantech and education, to name just some of the hot sectors where Finland could find its next Nokia. The next Finnish star could also be in space. In early 2017, Cohu Experience, a startup building a space game and promising to send the winner to space, raised a stunning 3.2 million euros round from the crowd. So this Nordic country is no longer limited by its climate or distance from bigger markets. �

66º 30' 14.21" N 25º 43' 45.81" E

#NORDICMADE / 2017

CoFounder Slush Special

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SWEDEN

173,860 sq mi

Sweden is the seventhrichest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita and has a very high standard of living.

GDP (PPP) PER CAPITA

$49,678 (17th)

SWEDEN

Capital

Stockholm Population (2015)

9,593,000

Currency

Swedish krona Head of State

Carl XVI Gustaf

Official Language

Swedish

59ยบ 19' 45.56" N 18ยบ 04' 6.89" E

CoFounder Slush Special

2017 / #NORDICMADE

HOMOSEXUALITY WAS LEGALISED IN

1944

FIRST MENTIONED IN

98AD

SWEDES (THE SUIONES TRIBE) ARE

first described in a written source in Germania by the Roman writer Tacitus in 98 AD.

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Tongues SWEDEN IS HOME TO FIVE

official languages — Finnish, Meänkieli, Sami, Yiddish & Romani.

Keep it green

Peace

MOST WASTE IS RECYCLED OR

DESPITE MAINTAINING A MILITARY

processed in Sweden. Just 1% of Swedish waste ends up in a dump.

Sweden is proud to have not participated in a war in the last 200 years.

Parents

Wasps

SWEDEN OFFERS GENEROUS PAID

DESPITE ALL THE BEARS AND WILD

parental leave to all of its citizens — in total 480 days per couple.

animals wasps kill more people directly than any other animal in Sweden — about one per year.

Helpful & tight-knit SWEDEN - IF YOU TALK ABOUT THE SWEDISH STARTUP ECOSYSTEM, YOU HAVE TO START WITH STOCKHOLM. LUKAS GRÄF

rom a capital perspective, Sweden attracted around 1.7 billion USD in startup funding during 2016, but the majority was deployed in Stockholm (1.4 billion USD over 247 investments). Over the last few years, the Stockholm startup scene has really tightened up and the Swedish capital has become the place to be – it has definitely become one of the top three hubs in Europe. But not only has Stockholm boomed with plenty of new exciting startup success stories in 2016. Gothenburg and Malmö have also become important places in the Swedish startup landscape alongside Umeå, Linköping and Uppsala. There are now many initiatives happening in these cities and more and more investors spend time in Swedish cities other than Stockholm. During 2016, Gothenburg and Malmö saw 37 investments each. While other cities are certainly gaining traction, the majority is centred on Stockholm. Looking at it from a practical perspective, you can meet the majority of exciting startups and investors in Stockholm within a 10-minute walking radius of downtown. The great startup role models Spotify, King, Klarna, Truecaller, iZettle, Tictail, Fishbrain; the big VC funds Northzone, Creandum, EQT Ventures and #NORDICMADE / 2017

Industrifonden; as well as the main startups hubs SUP46, Epicenter and Norrsken, are all within a 1km radius. That makes it so much easier for everyone involved to do business and it has certainly had a big effect. Regular meetups and events all over the country, such as Sthlm Tech Meetup/ Fest, Startup Day, Connect 2 Capital or Nordic Next have helped create a lot of hype. During recent years a lot of international focus has been attracted, both among investors and the media, so by now it is quite common to see magazines and newspapers from abroad regularly featuring new Swedish innovations and international investors coming from other parts of Europe and the world to try to get in on the next Swedish startup stars. Today the Stockholm and Swedish startup scene is described by both entrepreneurs and other stakeholders as a tightknit one where people help each other to go further. The ecosystem has rapidly developed, with successful entrepreneurs re-investing their time and money into the next generation of startups and local-language media like Breakit and DI Digital helping to spread the word, which has all helped a great foundation to grow. Most recently the government has announced that programming will be taught in all Swedish elementary schools from first grade, starting in 2018. � CoFounder Slush Special

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NORWAY

148,718 sq mi

Norway has the secondhighest GDP per-capita in Europe, and the fourthhighest GDP (PPP) percapita in the world.

GDP (PPP) PER CAPITA

$69,296 (4th)

COLONEL-IN-CHIEF OF THE NORWEGIAN KING'S GUARD, BRIGADIER SIR NILS OLAV (WHO IS A PENGUIN), WAS KNIGHTED BY NORWAY IN

2008

FIRST NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE

3rd Century

THE OLDEST KNOWN NORWEGIAN RUNIC

inscription dates from the 3rd century around the same time the country was heavily settled.

61º 50' 6.1" N 6º48' 23.6" E

NORWAY

Capital

Oslo

Population (2015)

5,214,890

Currency

Norwegian krone Head of State

Harald V

Official Language

Norwegian (Bokmål & Nynorsk), Sami

The Happiest Place on Earth NORWAY – A COUNTRY OF NEVER-ENDING SUNSETS, THE BIRTHPLACE OF SKIING, AND RECENTLY NAMED THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH, MATTHEW SMITH

CoFounder Slush Special

ut an accolade to take them all – it is on track to be the fasted growing startup ecosystem in the Nordics in 2017. Until 5-10 years ago, Norway rarely featured as a player in the European, or even Nordic startup ecosystem. Fast forward to today, with investments totalling 196.3 million dollars in 2016, representing a 160% increase on 2015, and in 2017 / #NORDICMADE

a few short years the once dormant ecosystem is proving to have been a sleeping giant (or troll) overtaking its Scandinavian neighbours as the fastest growing Nordic ecosystem in 2016, second only to Sweden. The catalyst in this growth is no coincidence. It has been driven by an entrepreneurial revolution, recognised and supported by a collaborative effort from the government; through Innovation Norway,

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Reindeer Mad

Tunneling

Ship Happens

Coastline

Exports

NORWAY IS HOME TO SOME

IN 2000 NORWAY OPENED THE

NORWAY HAS ONE OF THE LARGEST

NORWAY’S COAST IS A FJORD-

NORWAY’S MAIN EXPORTS ARE

30,000 Sami and Lapp people and they love their reindeer!

world's longest road tunnel, with a length of 24.5 kilometres.

merchant and oil-tanker fleets in the world.

gashed shoreline that exceeds 21,000 kilometres (13,050 miles).

“Keep an eye on Norway: its startup scene is about to go huge” HAJE JAN KAMPS TECHCRUNCH

62º 28' 20.02" N 6º 08' 58.14" E

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petroleum, metals, chemicals, ships and fish.

who have proven invaluable in supporting early stage startups with financial, educational and technical support; and corporates, such as DNB launching NXT accelerator to find the next fintech success, Telenor are doing the same within the mobile marketing arena and soon more corporates will follow their lead. Even the Royal House is heavily involved, with HRH Crown Prince Haakon becoming an active spokesperson for the Norwegian ecosystem, opening the Startup Extreme and Slush conferences last year. Oslo-based co-working spaces like MESH, StartupLab, 657, Gründergarasjen, Y3o and Bitraf have paved the way for a new breed of ecosystem supporters, such as Oslo House of Innovation, Katapult Accelerator and FinTech Factory. Also, industry-focussed innovation hubs have emerged; X2 Labs and Innovations Docks in Stavanger, Impact Hub in Bergen and Flow in Trømso. This momentum shows no sign of stopping with more than 30 new innovation hubs, incubators and accelerators planned to open in 2017 across the country. It is putting Norway on the radar as a blossoming innovation hub, attracting international interest and investment. This unique support network does not stop with startups either. Angel Challenge are catering to the other side of the table, focussing on educating first time angel investors and attempting to channel some of the nation’s vast financial resources into fuelling startups. Others, such as StartupLab, have raised a fund to support some of the 200+ companies that have taken up offices in their co-working space. While Norway is better known for whale sightings in the fjords than its startup success stories, the country held 44 scaleups that collectively raised 600 million dollars in 2016. Adding this to the supportive environment that the Norwegian ecosystem provides to early-stage startups, it is not too farfetched to predict unicorn sightings in the near future. � CoFounder Slush Special

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Denmark

REPORTS

ERVIN SZERDOCZ

IMAGES

COURTESY OF STARTUPS & STOCK

Radio Revolution WARM

How great would it be if you knew instantly when a radio station starts playing your song?

CoFounder Slush Special

2017 / #NORDICMADE

hat thought was made in 2013 by manager and label-owner Jesper Skibsby. Years later, WARM (World Airplay Radio Monitor) is set to launch on 17th April 2017. Jesper discovered that there was no way of really knowing if a radio was playing your songs as an artist or manager, unless you were connected to a major record label. And even so, you would only be able to see airplays on large radio stations. Furthermore, the solutions were very expensive and not very accessible for indie labels, managers, and musicians. The value of a radio play is very individual, and the size of the radio station very relative for the different artists and bands. A Polish local Rock station, could potentially be very valuable for a Norwegian Rock band, and a higher rotation is more possible than on a national Norwegian radio station. It would also most likely be easier to get in contact with the radio host regarding new releases and interviews. In 2014, Jesper discovered a German/ Norwegian tech company that had developed an audio fingerprint algorithm to monitor and recognise mp3 files on radio stations in real time. An agreement was made and Jesper began looking for investors so that he could build a flexible and financially-accessible platform and app, targeted at the rising DIY segment of musicians, labels and managers. The company would be named WARM, an acronym for World Airplay Radio Monitor, and allow everyone to

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monitor radio airplays on every station in the world, whether it was a high-school radio in Wisconsin, a techno station in Berlin or a large national radio station in the US or Japan. Even ahead of the upcoming launch, the WARM platform currently monitors 21,000 radio stations in more than 100 countries worldwide, making it by far the biggest radio monitoring service on the market, according to coverage of stations. Jesper established a team, together with Kristoffer Stensgaard, who has a background with Music startups and IT management. A business plan was created and investors were found. On 21st December 2016 the papers were signed and WARM became a reality, with seed funding by Danish Capital fund CAPNOVA at a valuation of 11 million DKK. During the last few months, beta testing has been done with 90 different musicians, managers, label-owners, producers and songwriters, with incredible feedback. WARM 1.0 will be launched as a fully-functional MVP platform and App, and will deliver accurate real-time data. It will provide several features, including: detailed reports, clear geographical maps and timelines displaying the information gathered, push notifications on radio airplays and downloadable reports. The upcoming product, WARM, brings the promise of disrupting the way data on radio plays is handled, giving valuable insights on where and how often the music is being played. “We live in an information society, yet most of the data on radio plays are hidden to individual artists. We want to provide these insights to the musicians, empowering them in true transparency,” says Jesper Skibsby, Founder and CEO at WARM. The possibilities of product development with this technology is almost endless. A long list of new features is on the drawing board and will soon be ready to be implemented in WARM 1.1 �

WASHA

They said we would never make it Karim Ben M’Barek, co-founder and CEO of Washa, got the idea for Washa one night when he was doing his laundry in the laundry facilities of his apartment block. #NORDICMADE / 2017

he washing machines were never available during the daytime, so he always had to do his laundry during the night, at 2am. One day, when he was too fed up with his laundry situation, he googled “on demand laundry service”. To his surprise nobody was offering such a service. One month later, in February 2014, Karim, together with Jannick Christensen and Max Børglum Stripp, launched Washa.dk version 1.0. The first orders were handled in Jannick’s apartment. Clothes were washed in his washing machine and shirts were ironed afterwards – proper entrepreneurial style! However, as orders were coming in rapidly they knew that they had to team up with a local dry cleaner. They went to more than 20 local dry cleaners and laundry businesses in Copenhagen to pitch the idea of a 50/50 cut from the orders if they did the treatment of the clothes that Washa received. Every time they were left CoFounder Slush Special

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disappointed by the dry cleaners, who laughed at their idea and said that they would never make it. Karim, Max and Jannick didn’t understand why it wasn’t possible to close a deal but continued with great persistence and determination to find their “partner” until they finally succeeded. Together with the dry cleaner, Washa had more capacity to grow. Just a few months later Washa was contacted by the laundry giant Berendsen Textile Service. They had been following Washa for some time and were impressed by their achievements. The parties initiated a dialogue, which resulted in an investment in Washa from Berendsen. Additionally, Berendsen took over the treatment of all the clothes that Washa received from their orders. Today, about three years after the launch of Washa, the company has received investment three times and has consolidated its position as the biggest online laundry and dry cleaning service throughout Scandinavia – the company is launching its service in Malmø, Sweden, at the time of writing. Additionally, Washa plans to expand to Amsterdam in 2017 and possibly to other locations in Northern Europe. The partnership with Berendsen has grown stronger since the first investment and has allowed Washa to operate in the 16 countries that Berendsen is present in. Washa will be able to use Berendsen’s production facilities in all 16 countries, providing Washa with a unique possibility to scale. The funding Washa has received has been through two rounds from Berendsen and one round through the Danish edition of “Dragon’s Den”, which Washa appeared on during the first season in autumn 2015, giving the company considerable attention in Denmark. In addition to Washa’s expansion plans, Washa has spent time establishing a marketing partnership with the online clothes provider Boozt.com, among others, to increase the added value for their customers. � 24

CoFounder Slush Special

WRITEREADER

ABC for 200 years It's a fact that 15-20% of all kids in first world countries are struggling with basic reading and writing skills.

“H

ow many years have we taught our children to read and write through the ABC approach?” That was the first question co-founder Babar Baig asked Janus Madsen when he approached Babar back in May 2012. Having been a teacher for the past 16 years, Janus answered, “more than 200 years.” Babar replied, “I’m in.” Technology is disrupting all sectors, but no-one has really questioned the way we teach kids to read and write. That was the reason that both Babar and Janus quit their jobs to create WriteReader, where kids can learn to read through the creation of interest-based activities. For more than 200 years we have taught our children how to write and read

2017 / #NORDICMADE

in the same way. Still, every fifth child today is functionally illiterate. Being both parents and passionate teachers, this made us think: okay, if children can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn. By creating WriteReader we have done just that. Children learn by being motivated. They are not motivated by putting A, B and C in different orders; they are motivated by telling stories about dinosaurs, Christiano Ronaldo, skateboarding and pink, fluffy unicorns. We let children write books about their big passions without letting correct spelling slow them down or kill their motivation. A teacher or parent then writes the correct spelling, so the focus is on comparing, not correcting. This is pretty much the way we teach our children how to talk.

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55º 45' 31.74" N 12º 33' 10.02" E

When the books are done, we let the proud authors publish them on our website library, where other authors can read, share and review the book. Our dream is to change lives by changing writing from being a potential losing game into a rewarding experience where children publish, share and become proud writers. Janus saw the pain in his own classroom and was disappointed by the way digital tools were being used. “Just because an app on the app store is designed for children, it doesn’t mean it has good learning value for kids. We wanted to be a more serious alternative to those other apps and tools. We spent a lot of time researching to make sure that children could actually benefit from this. “Parents and teachers have long-known that children excel when they are interested in the subject matter and are active vs. passive learners. By providing the ability to express themselves with their favourite characters, we have created a compelling experience to help strengthen students’ reading and writing through storytelling,” said Babar Baig, CEO and co-founder of WriteReader. WriteReader’s literacy platform is now used by more than 200,000 teachers and students and more than 1million books have been created by kids globally. WriteReader has won several awards and in 2015 WriteReader was selected by Intel Education as the only non-US company to participate in the first cohort accelerator in Silicon Valley. WriteReader’s interest-based and active learning environment have been independently verified to improve learning outcomes significantly in only 6 weeks when compared to the control group. WriteReader is currently growing in the US market and has launched a partnership with Sesame Street to improve Children’s literacy skills. The next step is to expand further into the US market, where 30 million US adults read below 4th-grade level. � #NORDICMADE / 2017

CoFounder Slush Special

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Finland

REPORTS

JESSICA BLECHINGBERG

IMAGES

COURTESY OF STARTUPS & STOCK

TESPACK

Making everyone energy independent. Tespack was founded by CEO Mario Aguilera in Helsinki.

CoFounder Slush Special

ario used to be in the Special Forces where one of the biggest problems was empty batteries â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they always needed to return to base to recharge all their equipment, which interrupted the overall missions. Later, Mario had a textile company in London and he became the co-founder of a renewable energy company in Finland, focusing on creating generators for wind turbines and industrial solar panels. That was when the idea came that every-

2017 / #NORDICMADE

one should be energy independent and able to create their own energy on-the-go, since everything had gone mobile. Caritta SeppĂ¤, the COO of the startup, joined the venture as a co-founder and a year later Sami Pfaler, Yesika A. Robles and Matti Naskali joined the company as fellow co-founders. The Tespack team closed their first investment round in 2016 with Arkley Seed Fund, an American Polish VC fund. The reason why Tespack wanted them on board was simple: their expertise

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in hardware. The vision of Tespack is to be able to power people on-the-move and to make everyone energy independent. “We focus on Smart Wear and entered the market with our Solar Smartpacks. Now we have been developing new, innovative technologies and Smart Wear. During Q2 2017, we will be launching the world’s first Solar Smart IoT Helmet with ultra-fast charging technology (3 times faster than Qualcomm) so you can charge a 5000mAh battery to full in 12 minutes, rather than the 4-5 hours it would normally take. Our ultra-fast charging technology is faster, safer and smarter than other charging technologies in the consumer sector,” says Caritta. The team has seen great growth and developments in the past year. Tespack started with their Solar Smartpacks, but today, they have an array of Smart Wear and the company’s customers include Vodafone, Intersport, Scandinavian Outdoor Store, the UN and military. Tespack have developed completely new technologies, filed several patents and started working with top scientists and companies, including TomTom, GE and the Austrian Space Forum with whom they are developing the first Solar Smartpack for a Mars mission. “We have an amazing, talented team and a great network of support. We are very happy with everything we have achieved so far and there is so much more to come, so stay tuned for when we launch our next, innovative products later in June 2017,” says Caritta. �

APPFOLLOW

Helping developers in their everyday routines AppFollow is a real-time monitor for user reviews, versions, rankings and search result positions in the App Store, Google Play and Windows Store.

ppFollow is a real-time monitor for user reviews, versions, rankings and search result positions in the App Store, Google Play and Windows Store. The founders, Anatoly Sharifulin, Evgeny Kruglov and Pavel Vlasov met at one of the mobile events in Moscow, back in 2014. By that #NORDICMADE / 2017

time, Evgeny had his own company and tried to hire Anatoly. Eventually, they all co-founded AppFollow. All the founders have a background in mobile app development. At different times in their lives they have all faced the same problem — how can one easily track competitors in the app stores? CoFounder Slush Special

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The team carried out dozens of interviews and found that many companies faced the same problem. That idea triggered the creation of AppFollow – a tool that collects an app’s data and helps you work with it. “We held dozens of interviews and it turned out that lots of teams face the same problem. After that it was easy to take the final decision to start our venture,” said cofounder Evgeny Kruglov. AppFollow’s goal is to help developers in their everyday routines by automating and optimising their time and resources. Today, data aggregation is vital to help teams make decisions about their products. AppFollow collects data from multiple sources into one place and allows you to use it anywhere, describing itself as a single hub for mobile apps’ data. After founding AppFollow, the company self-funded their startup for one year. Evgeni’s apartment became their first office and in September 2015 the startup was selected to participate at Startup Sauna in Helsinki. During the same month, the team received their first investment from a business angel. Getting to Startup Sauna was a good sign for the investor and convinced him enough to join the board. Running a company in the Nordics today is not difficult when compared to Russia. According to Evgeny, startups can get a lot of services online. “You don’t need to spend your time in queues and doing paperwork you don’t actually need. The general rules are easy to understand and they are very transparent,” continues Evgeny. At the moment the team is working hard on finding their perfect product market fit. That involves constant testing of new ideas and a lot of product iterations. The team works closely with their customers. “We hope to make a few big announcements in the upcoming months, which will involve our new take on our bot for Slack & Telegram and also a new release for our AppStore Optimization Tool,” highlights Evgeny.� 28

CoFounder Slush Special

2017 / #NORDICMADE 60º 10' 11.48" N 24º 56' 18.16" E

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#NORDICMADE / 2017

CoFounder Slush Special

#NORDICMADE

REPORTS

#nordicmade

PLATOME SANDRA MJÖLL JÓNSDÓTTIR BUCH

Iceland

Engineering Human Organs PLATOME

KAPTIO ARNAR LAUFDAL ÓLAFSSON KAROLINA FUND INGI RAFN SIGURDSSON

IMAGES

COURTESY OF STARTUPS

Platome Biotechnology started in 2016 after six years of scientific collaboration between the founders, Sandra Mjöll Jónsdóttir-Buch and Dr. Ólafur E. Sigurjónsson (Óli).

hile studying stem cells derived from human bone marrow, they realised that the current methods used to handle cells are problematic. Blood serum derived from calf fetuses is the main problem. The calf serum enables scientists to keep cells alive in the laboratory, but it is associated with ethical issues, large quality variations that can affect research results and animal-borne infectious dis-

eases. If stem cell-based therapies and engineered organs are ever to enter the clinic, other methods without calf serum were clearly required. Sandra and Óli therefore set out to find a suitable alternative of a higher quality that was available in sufficient quantities as a replacement. The team operated in the Icelandic blood bank and quickly discovered that waste platelets contained a lot of nutrients and growth factors for cells. They

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started to experiment with waste platelets and finally validated methods to transform the wasted platelets into nutrition for cells. The nutrition, called platelet lysates, yielded better results than the blood serum from fetal calves. The results were published in peer-reviewed journals and the team attracted a lot of attention from research groups interested in trying out the platelet solutions. As interest in the products rose, the founders decided

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to commercialise the technology and since then they have developed innovative platelet lysate products that are in patent process. “We have seen a nearly 500% increase in stem cell research in the past decade. Especially focused on engineering human tissues and organs. We also see numerous biotech companies being founded to transfer this technology to the market. However, to reach the market such products need to adhere to strict regulations and quality standards. That’s where Platome comes in; our products allow this transfer to happen faster,” says Sandra, CEO of Platome. Platome has received 1.1 million dollars in funding over the past six years through government grants and private investments. The first product was launched last summer and will be followed with two other products this year. “We have leading expertise in the field and have used this knowledge to build products that fit our customer needs better than competing products. We are also able to apply new and emerging technology to build something completely different, ahead of our competitors,” says Sandra. “We place great emphasis on working with our customers, whether they are universities, research groups, biotech or pharmaceutical companies. By reaching out to them, we have been able to obtain a good understanding of their needs and focus on that during product development,” she adds. Platome has grown by four team members in the last year, with a total head count of six. The team works very closely together towards the common goal of producing high quality biotech products that accelerate the development of cell therapies and tissue-engineered solutions. Following growth in the past few months, Platome has reached a point where scaling and expanding to larger markets is necessary. “We are excited about our future growth. We believe that our technology has a real potential to advance medicine and science, giving us a greater sense of purpose.” �

Pack Your Bags! KAPTIO

Kaptio is the next generation booking system that helps travel agents and tour operators deliver a personalised customer experience.

aptio is a CRM and booking software within Salesforce that enables tour operators to create complex group and multi-destination itineraries within minutes. Every great company begins with addressing a need. Kaptio founders, Arnar Ólafsson and Ragnar Fjölnisson, previously worked together in hospitality. Arnar was managing a hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland, and saw an opportunity in using Salesforce to improve and track customers and #NORDICMADE / 2017

potential customers to increase bookings. Ragnar specialised in technical solutions, including Salesforce implementation. The more they worked together, the more they discussed the limitations of legacy booking systems and the missed opportunities resulting from these antiquated, offline technologies’ inability to adapt to the changing needs of both travellers and the tour operators who handled complex group and multi-destination itineraries on their behalf. CoFounder Slush Special

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“Our deep knowledge of navigating travel hurdles may just make Icelanders some of the best logistics problemsolvers globally.”

In 2012, they got the idea to build a comprehensive reservation system for the hotel and property management industries, which evolved into a larger comprehensive travel CRM and booking system for the entire travel industry. To get Kaptio off the ground, Arnar and Ragnar focused on professional services in the Salesforce ecosystem, targeting companies in the Nordics. They focused on identifying their customers’ technical needs and recommending and customising solutions to meet those needs. “We were working with the Salesforce platform and we thought that we could start to offer our system integration services to companies in the Nordics that wanted to implement Salesforce more cost-effectively than was otherwise offered in countries like Norway,” said Arnar Ólafsson, CEO of Kaptio. “However, we found that most of our initial customers needed websites. So, we built websites for them,” said Arnar.

“We continued to dig deeper into their technical needs and created additional solutions for each step in their process, whether it was implementing Salesforce, creating an API solution or simply updating and connecting all of their technical resources in the cloud.” This close relationship with their customers enabled Kaptio to understand a variety of hurdles that travel operators were facing in serving travellers’ needs, from hotel and tour bookings to transportation requirements to payment processing, currency conversion and language offerings. Listening to customers also informed the development of Kaptio’s software solution with a channel for testing aspects of their CRM and booking features directly with the customers that were most likely to adopt the software. Despite the fact that travellers predominantly utilise online resources to make travel decisions, the majority of travel bookings globally are still offline and the

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travel purchase journey was segmented and inefficient. The technology to support bookings simply hasn’t kept up with increasing online demand, with many legacy SaaS solutions siloed away from the cloud, which slows inventory analysis, preventing real-time revenue opportunities. “We had identified a key pain point for tour operators – legacy systems that do not allow them to build complex travel arrangements on the fly,” said Arnar. Travel and navigating challenging logistics is ingrained in every Icelander. Whether for vacation, study or business, most Icelanders travel regularly. “Our deep knowledge of navigating travel hurdles may just make Icelanders some of the best logistics problem-solvers globally. Until recent years, for example, it was not possible to book direct flights to many destinations from Iceland, so you had to figure it out yourself,” Arnar recalled. A lot of Icelanders also study abroad. I went to university in California and Ragnar attended university in Scotland,” said Arnar. “We often stay on after our studies to work abroad. But it’s also very common for Icelanders to return home. We’re very connected to the island. This Icelandic diaspora brings home with it new knowledge and methodologies from lots of countries and cultures, which has an immediate impact on the Icelandic social and business ecosystem.” Kaptio incorporates their inherent knowledge of travel and the external influences from other markets into its product development. This enables them to squarely focus on ensuring its cloudbased solution is contemporary and supported by Salesforce’s robust technology ecosystem to better serve tour operators and their customers. “Our goal is to continually refine Kaptio’s offerings to proactively evolve with the travel market and be the leader in tour operator software globally,” said Arnar. Kaptio has offices in Iceland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Belarus. �

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Smart Crowd KAROLINA FUND

Machine learning and BI technical solutions for crowdfunding platforms. Our mission is to become the best online funding mechanism in the world.

arolina Fund is a startup company from Iceland. We are the winners of the Nordic Startup Awards 2016 (Social Tech) and co-founders of the Nordic Crowdfunding Alliance. We have +90% market share, 10% of the Icelandic adult population active on our crowdfunding platform karolinafund. com and a +70% world record success rate in reward based crowdfunding. In the spring of 2016 we started offering our technical solutions under the name Karolina Engine and within a few months we were working in Slovenia, Finland, Denmark and Norway. We are not just people who run platforms, our team includes designers, filmmakers, entrepreneurs and business hackers, and we celebrate every single idea that comes to life as our own. We do not advocate blindly trying to win the lottery of overnight success out of thin air. Instead, we understand the value of being

local, both within and across national boundaries. In March 2014 The Nordic Crowd funding Alliance was established. The alliance started its journey as a university-industry partnership and was made possible through the support of Nordic Innovationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s High Growth Entrepreneurship Program. Through The Nordic Crowdfunding Alliance we became aware of the need for a complete solution for crowdfunding platforms and the idea of Karolina Engine was born. Karolina Engine is a one-stop service for crowdfunding of all kinds. Our expertise, business analytics and technical solutions allow crowdfunding platforms to save time and money, and focus on their core business. Our software and business solution is all about creating a great overall crowdfunding experience for the platform owners, the campaigners and the backers. We are building business intelligence and artificial intelligence into the process #NORDICMADE / 2017

of online funding. We know that one of the key elements that a platform owner needs is graphical information about how the platform is doing and what to expect in the future. That is why we build artificial intelligence that talks to the customer during the preparation of a campaign and helps the campaigner to make decisions on what to do to maximise their funding during the campaign. There are multiple types of crowdfunding solutions, including: Reward, Equity, Subscription-based and White label. It is a perfect fit for those who need to focus on customers, sales and marketing instead of technology infrastructure and web development. An access to crowdfunding expertise and solutions that is customised to requirements. A no hassle all-around package where no coding or designers skills are needed. The result is a web interface and the right tools to work smarter and be successful in crowdfunding. ďż˝ CoFounder Slush Special

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COURTESY OF STARTUPS & STOCK

One Simple Subscription VIO

VIO is a digital platform giving you access to articles from over sixty magazines and newspapers through one simple monthly subscription.

ndré Wærness-Vold and Agnes Dyvik founded VIO with the mission to build a digital platform to present selected journalistic work from multiple sources, based on each individual’s preferences. Faced with information overload and fierce competition for people’s time and attention, we hold that the role of journalism in our lives and society is still

fundamental. VIO is the independent, common ground, where people around the world can connect easily to the most attractive content for their particular interests, across publishers or categories. The lasting impression we strive to make through the design and communication of VIO, is a personal approach. The fact that we put the user at the centre of this media universe is what makes us different.

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We offer unlimited access to the stories you care about. So much so that you can use VIO on all your devices, as much as you want. At VIO we believe that people are willing to pay for quality and convenience. Our deal is simply one subscription to the world of content. In 2016 VIO raised 540,000 euros and in 2017 the company will scale out of the Nordics and into the UK market. �

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Video is big SYNQ

With the rise of companies like Twilio and Stripe, API solutions are on the rise throughout the tech world.

evelopers are now used to being able to integrate payment, communications, analytics, and site search into their projects with just a few lines of code. When it comes to video, developers have had limited choices. SYNQ aims to capture this po-

sition and become for video what Twilio is for messaging. SYNQs video API offers access to scalable video infrastructure, including storage, transcoding and content delivery â&#x20AC;&#x201C; enabling developers to easily take advantage of video functionality in their

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apps or websites. Also, in order to make the capabilities of the API accessible to as many developers as possible, SYNQ offers extensive documentation and a range of SDKs. Furthermore, the API allows for fully programmable queries and webhooks, which together enable an ifthis-then-that style logic for advanced video workflows, making the solution highly flexible. SYNQ is currently establishing itself in the US and will continue to develop its API along great features with video processing add-ons, such as object recognition and transcription. ďż˝

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Connected when most needed SFTY AS

Sfty’s objective is to make use of IoT technology to offer a disruptive home safety solution targeted at apartment blocks and MDUs.

he solution includes a sfty app, with personal safety features and remote control of the multi safety detector; the sfty Sense, a multi safety detector that includes smoke detection, burglar alarm, temperature and humidity sensors; and the sfty Control, a complete dashboard to monitor the safety in an MDU. The features include configurable escalation for MDU fire and safety administrators; redundancy through radio relay and multiple internet connections; and different, configurable, behaviours depending on the zone (apartment or common area). Sfty is capitalising on an untapped security market within MDUs, which has been overlooked by its peers. Sfty will grow through selected distributors who utilise the sfty value proposition as a means of securing customer loyalty and reducing churn while securing a strategic new revenue stream. Very promising contracts have already been secured with blue chip partners. #NORDICMADE / 2017

The sfty team is excited by their latest achievements in Europe and most of their key numbers and acheivements are hard for any home security company to beat: • Innovation Award at CES 2017 in the Smart Home category • 11,000 multi safety devices sold, in just a few months • 1,300 apartments within one single MDU as the largest installation ordered so far! “Get Safe is a strategic focus area and investment for Get. We expect it to become increasingly important in the years to come. The initial response from our customers and sales teams are encouraging.” Torbjørn Aamodt Ellingsen, Chief Product Officer, Get AS “I sleep much better with such a fire alarm system in an apartment building – it gives me a peace of mind.” Chairman, Jan Einar Syre, in the MDU Observatoriegata 21. � CoFounder Slush Special

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Sweden

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Go Hack Yourself DETECTIFY

The internet is broken, and we’re trying to fix it.

etectify was born from the simple idea that the internet was broken. The company was founded in 2013 and quickly became one of the most talked about startups in the field of web security. The four founders of Detectify (Fredrik, Johan, David, Mathias) were friends from school who shared a mutual curiosity for the internet – in particular, how it was built. A growing fascination with technology and the internet led them to start scouring the web for information, tutorials, discussions, and forums. They wanted to understand how web pages were built. David explains: “I once saw a webpage that sucked and thought I could do it better!” Early on, it was platforms like Playhead and Lunarstorm (Swedish social networking platforms for teens) that inspired the founders to start experimenting with programming. “We started coding without actually knowing it at the time,” Johan says. They wanted to create new themes and profile layouts and understand how the platform worked. Johan started creating fake accounts on Lunarstorm to set #NORDICMADE / 2017

up new themes and learn how it was built behind the scenes (“I did not want to use my own profile for that”). The theme he was proudest of looked almost the same as Lunarstorm’s original design. Fredrik Almroth tells a similar story. He was a member of the community Playahead and it was the desire to change his profile page that made him start coding. At this point, HTML had exploded – the I Love You-virus was spread and the movie Matrix was released. All of this fostered his passion for development. He wanted to learn more and understand how the I Love You-virus was built, which sparked an interest in cyber security. During their high school years, the four friends met up and coded together every other weekend and every Tuesday. They usually met at Johan’s place, since he was the only one with his own apartment, or in the basement of Fredrik’s parents’ house. The founders’ web security interest grew when they started hanging out on different hacking forums and IRCchannels. Most members of the community were young and united by their mutual curiosity and interest in understanding the internet. At the time, the white hat / black hat culture was evolving, i.e. those who wanted to hack into sites to “prove a point” and those who did it for ethical reasons, to inform site owners that vulnerabilities existed. However, Johan points out that there were also a lot of teenage pranks and elitism involved in the forums. Years later, their passion for development and web security led the founders to begin studying IT at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, but they quickly dropped out as they felt they were not learning anything relevant. They experienced the same thing in high school and nowadays they often quote their former teachers and joke about the inaccurate things the teachers often said. “Most things we learned at KTH were not even related to IT. They were probably good to study but it was CoFounder Slush Special

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not really our thing. We are more about ‘learning by doing’. Then we got job offers while studying and the rest is history.” David began working as a developer at Young and Skilled, and later brought in the rest of the team. At that point, the idea of Detectify had already been born and the guys developed a beta, but the market was not ready yet. Piotr Zaleski, Business Angel and Entrepreneur, was one of the people at Young and Skilled who realised early on that the founders were on to something special. He and Frans Rosén, now one of the Detectify security researchers, decided to invest in the company and eventually let them work full time to fulfil the Detectify vision. Frans wanted to learn more about security and Fredrik and Mathias introduced him to the world of web security. Today, he is one of the highest-ranked ethical hackers in the world. Mathias left the company after a year because he wanted to try other things and proceed with his career as a bug bounty hunter on a freelance basis, but the biggest change was when Rickard Carlsson, former McKinsey consultant, was brought into the company as CEO. He became responsible for the strategic development of Detectify and bringing in investors to transform the white hat hacker vision of a safer internet into a successful and profitable tech company. Inventure (Finland), Paua Ventures (Germany) and Risto Siilasmaa, founder of F-Secure, are the main investors behind Detectify. On their first round they received 15 million SEK, and during May 2015-May 2016 they grew by 12 people (April 2016 – 25 people). Since 2013, Detectify has received worldwide recognition for high quality security research, won several awards and nominations (Launch festival, Internetworld yearly Startup List 2015, Europe’s hottest startups 2016 by WIRED UK, Supertalanger by Veckans Affärer) and attracted customers from a wide range of industries and company sizes. � 40

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The Future of Medicine CELLINK

The first company in the world to commercialise a universal bioink for 3D Bioprinting.

magine receiving a transplanted organ that was printed with the use of a three-dimensional bioprinter. Such a scenario may be possible in the next couple of decades — and CELLINK may be the scientific pioneer that enables this technology to exist in the future. “CELLINK is the first bioink company in the world, and we’ve developed technology that allows scientists and researchers to print human organs and tissues,” said CEO and co-founder of CELLINK Erik Gatenholm. This technology consists of a biomaterial developed in Sweden and is used in conjunction with a 3D bioprinter, which is capable of printing out different tissues.

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“In the future, the plan is to use these for implantation purposes — save lives,” Gatenholm said. Gatenholm became involved in the bioink project during March 2015 with co-founder Hector Martinez Avila. The two saw huge potential in their work and realised that their product could go into the marketplace and become the first commercially available bioink in the world. CELLINK officially became a company on 27 January, 2016, and has been rapidly expanding since. Currently, the bioink is being used in labs all over the world for testing new products and developing new drugs. “You can, print out small pieces of a liver for instance,” Gatenholm said. “And

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then you can use that liver — it’s alive, it’s a real human liver — and you can use (it) to test new drugs.” Within the world of medicine, according to Gatenholm, budding technology is allowing for more personalised medicine, cutting healthcare costs and developing drugs and products that fit the human body better. “Not only that, this technology also allows for shortening down and saving a lot of money for pharmaceutical companies,” Gatenholm said. According to Gatenholm, it can take up to 10 years and cost nearly a billion dollars to develop a drug. The process requires in vitro studies, which are studies outside of the body, along with animal studies and clinical trials, before reaching a patient. “Our technology allows these pharmaceutical companies to start testing the drugs ... on human tissue from day one,” Gatenholm said. “You could potentially remove the entire need for animal studies.” Gatenholm estimated that human-organ transplants with the use of bioprinting technology will be possible in approximately the next 15 years. He thinks this technology provides a realistic path towards getting bioprinted organs into patients. “Of course, that’s the vision for the company, to be able to one day print fully functional organs,” Gatenholm said. “But to get to that level, we need to understand the technology better, and that’s going to take a lot of development.” “So we’re trying to change the world, right?” Gatenholm said. “I mean, that’s what everybody’s doing — but we’re trying to change the world of medicine. And I think that’s one of those areas where you’re constantly going to have to improve.” CELLINK’s technology is used by world renowned research institutions, such as Harvard, MIT and the FDA to name a few, and CELLINK products are in over 30 countries. In just one year CELLINK went from 2 to 21 employees. �

Edge Computer Vision MODCAM

Modcam’s intelligent vision solution collects and analyses information in real-time with smart-sensors.

he data is then processed with powerful analytics software in the sensor device itself. The solution provides a high level of security and privacy, unlike competing systems that usually stream unprocessed and unencrypted video for central processing. The initial application area is to create detailed analysis of movement patterns in retail and office environments. The data analysis generates easily-accessible graphical results in real time, which can be used to optimise space usage based on actual utilisation. The solution is truly plugand-play and it only takes 10 minutes to install a system that can subsequently be easily expanded further and continuously #NORDICMADE / 2017

upgraded with new application features. Bogdan Tudosoiu, Modcam CTO, sees the potential to improve operations in many different industries: “Since we have based our solution on an open platform, we can also let third party developers create their own applications,” he says. Hongquang Jiang, investment principal of Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, is convinced about the strong potential of the open platform approach, saying “we believe that Modcam’s visual sensor systems, with decentralised intelligence, can offer huge opportunities for new markets in the future.” Modcam is already delivering its first commercial installations in retail, office and hotel environments. � CoFounder Slush Special

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To meet new challenges for businesses and society, innovation must take centre stage. This applies to both the private and public sector. The more we can combine knowledge and skills to generate new goods, new services and new organisational solutions, the better equipped we will be to meet the future in the Nordic countries, in Europe and in the markets around the world.

By connecting the highest political level with the ecosystem itself, Nordic Innovation - an institution under the Nordic Council of Ministers - works to support and accelerate the position of the Nordic entrepreneurship scene.