BeneQ has won the Helsingin Sanomat Startup competition yesterday. Beneq is a nanotechnology company an IPR portfolio offering industrialised equipment and technology for functional coatings.

The public's choice for the next growth company from Finland went to Sulake.

The competition was an interesting event and nice to see such an event being hosted in Helsinki, but somehow it still lacked the enthusiasm of a big event. Some of the contestants were relatively poorly prepared and some even went overtime with the 2-minute elevator pitch. There's definitely still a lot to learn in terms of selling and marketing as most companies were self-centric and focused on their technology instead of the problems it solves and why it would become the next phenomenon out of Finland.

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Miikka Kukkosuo, January 11, 2008

In my opinion the contest could've well been done without visual aids. That would've forced the participants to pay more attention to how exactly the presentation is formed and delivered. I think preparing the visuals had taken focus out of the content of many of the pitches, and changing the slides also clearly distracted a few speakers. The only company who could've slightly benefited from the visuals was Floobs, had they succeeded in their idea of floobing video footage live from the back row onto the screen.

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