Tekes Tempo The Right Pace For Tellyo
A somewhat new initiative coming out of Tekes is Tekes Tempo, a program designed to put "feedback into practice" as we called it. In their own worlds, they're a market-oriented mobile services project designed to encourage growth-seeking companies to quickly reach the top of their field.
In 2011, 16 projects were funded with the average amount of funding for each project was just over EUR 43,000. Tempo is designed to cut through the bureaucracy so companies can quickly test out ideas on the market; so far the average processing time has been 33 days.
One company funded through Tekes Tempo this year has been Tellyo, a Startup Sauna Fall 2011 participant that is turning your phone into a personal remote controller that works with existing TVs. We were lucky to have Tekes suggest Tellyo for interview, the company is doing some really interesting stuff at the moment.
There Is Room For More Cross-Border Collaboration In Northern Europe
When ArcticStartup got started towards the end of 2007, we set out originally to cover Finnish startups and technology focused growth companies. In just 6 months we realised that the market is too small to sustain coverage and potential business. Therefore in early 2008 we expanded our reach to cover Nordics and Baltics, which back then seemed like an overly bold thing to do.
However, that move has probably been the smartest strategic decision our company has ever taken. The reason is quite simple to be honest. The Nordics and Baltics create a big enough region that makes sense to cover for a few good reasons.
iZettle Launches Smartphone Creditcard Reader In UK Market
iZettle, the chip card reader that allows anyone to take credit card payments on their smartphone, announces it is launching a test run in the UK. Three thousand mini-chip card readers are being made available for small businesses and individuals who are willing to participate in the beta trial.
We covered iZettle's payment fees recently, as the company just dropped the €0.15 transaction charge, leaving just a 2.75% fee for MasterCard, Visa, or Diners Club. American Express comes with a 3.75% fee. Missing from the UK launch is Visa credit card acceptance.
Jukka Hassinen On Why He Joined DealDash
After hearing that Jukka Hassinen, the ex-CEO of Brain Alliance was hired as the CTO of DealDash, I became curious what factors led him to join the young company when he clearly had many options open as one of the leading PHP developers in Finland. Hassinen was brought on board as a guru and CTO to help DealDash scale. Since DealDash’s platform is written in PHP, bringing a seasoned PHP expert like Jukka was an important strategic move for the startup.
Finnish Industry Investment Commits €7.5 Million To New Creandum III Fund
Finnish Industry Investment, the government owned investment company, has committed €7.5 million to the new Creandum III fund, which has not been officially closed. The fund has already raised 92.5 million at first closing, and aims to hit €150 million at final closing. The fund's focus is on consumer ventures with internet and mobile technologies, as well as on software and hardware investments.
Guidepal Sees Best Angle To Social Travel Through Editorial Content
These days, social travel startups the likes of Tripbirds, Tripl, (and maybe even Everplaces?) have been catching our eye. But unless you have a lot cooler friends than I do, they seem to be missing the critical mass to provide the content you need when you arrive in a new city. One Swedish travel startup that we haven't covered since 2010, but has been quietly growing in terms of usage, downloads, and content is Guidepal.
The company was founded in 2009 with the right idea that guidebooks would moving onto smartphones, and since then has seen over 3,5 million downloads and 600,000 registered users from over 170 countries.
The 60 Guidepal apps are broken down by city and are free to download on iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and WP7. Each app provides information on the local restaurants, nightlife, sights, as well as the practicalities. And all the information and maps are available offline. To be sure all the information is fresh and up to date, Guidpal updates the cities information every two months with local guides and travel journalists.
Crowdculture Provides Platform For Scandinavia's First Film Crowdfunding Service
Crowdculture, the Swedish crowdfunding platform, has launched a new interface that makes it possible for other platforms and communities to use the Crowdculture crowdfunding mechanism. The first to use this opportunity is Filmbasen, a filmmaker's meeting place and workshop located in Stockholm, who has likely been watching the successful crowdfunding efforts of Finland's Iron Sky very closely.
Nokia & Microsoft's AppCampus At Aalto University Now Accepting Applications
AppCampus, the joint venture between Microsoft, Nokia, and Aalto University with the goal of boosting the Windows and Nokia platforms, has today opened the doors to applications. The program is looking to fund unique, innovative and high impact mobile applications that utilize Windows Phone and Nokia platforms. The program is open to both teams and individuals, and will fund projects anywhere in the world based on their merit. The program will invest in total up to €18 million over the next three years.
Ringi Seeks To Change Phone Calls By Adding Context
If you were to invent the concept of a phone call today, would it look the same as it does right now? After being the CEO of Sulake (the company behind Habbo Hotel) for around ten and a half years, Timo Soininen decided he wanted to do something other than "sell pixels the rest of his life." Mid-September last year, he started building a team and formed Sunduka. The company's first product, called Ringi, fits into Soininen's vision of creating engagement marking tools for companies. But for consumers it seems like a logical update to how phone calls work.
"If you think about the history of mobile calls, for the past 40 years phone calls have not changed at all," Soininen explains. "When the GSM standards were devised years ago, that people simply forgot to include visual elements in a call. Back then you had tiny black-and-white screens, but in the last five years the world has become very visual."
Project Getaway Invites Entrepreneurs To Bali
I'm sure many readers of ArcticStartup wish their regional startup news source was called TropicalStartup instead, but at least it's getting to be summer. But this fall when the cold North winds start to blow, Danish entrepreneur Michael Bodekaer has put together an entrepreneur getaway in Bali, providing all the necessities for you to get some work done in a stress-free environment. This year's Project Getaway runs 16 September to 16 October with participation costs starting at $56 a day put to $178 depending on the Villa you select. The event is non-profit, reducing the costs.
No, I Won't Be Your Technical Co-Founder
This is a guest post by Martin Grüner. He is an Estonian entrepreneur and hacker, co-founder of game studio Aplefly games. He spent last summer in US, where he had to learn to say no to people who wanted him to be their technical co-founder. The post was originally published at Martin's own blog. You can follow him on twitter through @MartinGryner.
Hackers are becoming more and more like VCs, they often have to say “no”. Last summer, just before the 500 demo day I attended an event which required me to fill in “company” on name tag. As I was there just to help out Zerply for less than 2 months I didn’t feel adequate enough use their name. I didn’t bother to write my consulting companies either as obviously it wouldn’t have said anything. I decided to go for “Hacker”. I don’t think I would have been forced to listen to as many pitches had I chosen “writing checks”.
Every week I get approached by someone with a “game changing” idea. All they need is someone to execute it. “Hey, I’ve heard you are good at IT stuff, let’s start up!”. Well, no.
Fast Lane Launches Online Commercial Real Estate Service
Fast Lane Ventures, the Moscow-based serial startup developer, has launched an online service called Kommerstate.ru to help commercial real estate market players lease, purchase and sell properties.
Started last week, the site is the first of its kind in Russia, according to Fast Lane, and is more than a property database: it “converts a user interested in a property into a real business lead.”
The Friday Wrap-Up
Well hello Friday. Here's your weekly dosage of local startup news, events, and jobs that we came across. Top image is of Garage48's new space in Tallinn. It looks like a really cool environment, see more pictures of the space here.
Giosg Offers Targeted Live Help For Websites
Helsinki-based Giosg has built a sales, marketing, and customer intelligence solution designed to help companies get the most out of live help on their websites. Their main innovation offered by Giosg is the service allows companies to recognize and prioritize the most potential visitors in real time, and then reach out to them using a nicely integrated live-chat solution. The browser-based service is easy to use, and is designed to help any organization increase sales online by targeting only their most valuable potential customers who are browsing their website.
The installation of Giosg requires adding just one script to your website. This script maps your website, and through the settings you can target customers based on the priority you set for each page. If a webshop is running a new campaign, for example, a user could easily set the priority of that page to higher. The business potential for each customer is then calculated, and show graphically.
Arctic15 Tickets Now Available, First Speakers Announced
Arctic15 early bird tickets are now available at Arctic15.com! While the event is still some time away, we wanted to come out with our first batch of speakers to the event as well as more information on the concept itself.
Rovio Sneak Peeks Angry Birds Successor
Rovio must have had to carefully analyse many different alternatives for the first successor of Angry Birds as that would truly begin to label them as an multi-brand entertainment company. Today, Angry Birds brings in over €75 million in revenue for the company, but due to the nature of the games industry, being a hit business, that revenue will be hard to keep up over the years. To further grow and really get closer to a meaningful IPO, Rovio must differentiate its offering successfully.
Earlier this year the company announced they will be releasing a non-Angry Birds game as well. It is this game that will begin to determine how good Rovio really is. Sarah Lacy's book, which looked at the ability of serial entrepreneurs to create successful companies one after another, titled "Once you're lucky, twice you're good", applies well to this situation.
Cherry Group Acquires Latvian CityLife, Now Claims Over 50% Market Share In Baltics
Cherry Media, the baltic daily deals group, announces it has acquired CityLife in Latvia, now giving Cherry Media a greater than 50% market share across the Baltic countries. Both the Cherry.lv and CityLife.lv brand names will be kept and marketed in Latvia, as the acquiring company explains historically there has been little market overlap between the sites. The deal was implemented via stock swap, with CityLife shareholders becoming shareholders of Cherry Media, and Cherry Media turning into the sole shareholder of CityLife.
Girts Slavins, who has been heading Cherry.lv in Latvia until the merger, is now joining Cherry Media Group regional management team and will be responsible for implementation of strategic pan-Baltic projects. In 2011 the gross sales turnover of Cherry Media Group daily deals portals in the three Baltic countries exceeded 12 million euros, while CityLife had gross sales turnover of 2.8 million euros in Latvia.
ArcticEvening Copenhagen Tix Now Available!
ArcticEvening Copenhagen is a go! We're organising an event in the capital of Denmark on the 31st of this month, meaning in exactly three weeks. The event will take place at the Nokia Campus, who are also our venue and drinks sponsors. As for content, we've signed up Podio's CEO Tommy Ahlers to come on stage to have a chat with us and share how Citrix's acquisition of the company went down.
Register your free ticket here and also take notice of the other information available there. You can also find the event through the events page.
#16 - Mike Reiner of Startup Wise Guys
We've managed to get to 16 episodes already! This week on Unfair Advantage we talk to Mike Reiner, one of the people behind the Estonian Startup Wise Guys accelerator program. Startup Wise Guys is an early stage accelerator aimed at interesting companies who want to tap into the potential of Scandinavia as well as Russia from Estonia. The accelerator announced their first batch of companies a while ago and they're coming from all over Europe. We talk to Mike about the program, how many applications they received and where they plan to take. Join us for another exciting episode and if you like it - please tell your friends and rate it in iTunes, we appreciate it!
iZettle Drops Fixed Transaction Fee
iZettle, the Swedish payment app and credit card chip reader, announces today it has dropped their €0.15 fee per transaction. Now to receive payments, users must only pay a 2.75% charge for MasterCard, Visa, or Diners Club card payments, or 3.75% for American Express.
This dropping of a transaction fee brings iZettle nearly on par with Square, the similar American service for credit cards without the security chip, which only charges 2.75% per transaction for all major credit cards. The two companies operate in different markets (iZettle supports the higher credit card security features used in Europe), but the dropping of the transaction charge signifies iZettle has matured to a similar level. iZettle has more than 50 000 users in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland.
