Archive for June 2009

The Pirate Bay To Be Acquired – Don’t Worry, Be Happy?

by Paula Marttila, June 30, 2009 — 1 Comment

The Pirate Persian BayThe news that The Pirate Bay (TBP) is to be acquired by Swedish company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) for MSEK 60 (App USD 7.7 million) spread all over the media this morning. The purchase includes the domain name and related web sites, including www.thepiratebay.org, and amounts to consisting of at least MSEK 30 in cash and up to the equivalent of MSEK 30 in the form of newly issued shares in GGF. The transaction is scheduled to be closed in August 2009.

The deal was shortly after the announcement confirmed by TPB, whereby Peter Sunde, the spokesperson of TPB, turned off his phone having too many people calling. According to him the 20 million users of TPB shouldn’t we worried. It is merely time to pass TPB on to secure it’s further development and future. To quote: “Don’t worry, be happy!”

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Thank You Sponsors

by Sponsor, June 30, 2009 — Leave a Comment

This is our periodic thank you note to our blog sponsors to describe what they have to offer.

Sun Startup Essentials logoThe Sun Startup Essentials program is specifically designed to help startups get their business off the ground FAST with the right IT infrastructure at the LOWEST COST possible. This program is available in many countries throughout the world. You can also go directly to your local country’s Sun Startup Essentials program web page to learn more.

Ohjelmistoyrittäjät logo

The Finnish Software Entrepreneurs Association is a non-aligned association for innovative, professional, growth-friven and entrepreneurial software business executives. Association drives the success of software business as an industry and supports individual software companies in their road to success.

Ohjelmistoyrittäjät ry on sitoutumaton, kasvuhakuisten ja yrittäjähenkisten ohjelmistoyritysten johdon yhteisö sekä ohjelmistoalan kehittäjä ja edunvalvoja Kehitämme kasvuhakuisten ohjelmistoyritysten toimintaedellytyksiä. Tavoitteenamme on, että yhä useampi suomalainen kasvuyritys ylittää kasvua rajoittavat esteet ja siirtyy kansainvälisille markkinoille.

Jäsenyys tarkoittaa

  • kokemusta ja mentorointia liiketoiminnan ammattilaisilta
  • apua liiketoiminnan kehittämiseen
  • sparrausta kasvuun haasteiden voittamiseksi
  • konkretiaa kansainvälistymisen käynnistämiseksi ja toteuttamiseksi
  • mahdollisuuden ajatusten, näkemysten ja parhaiden käytäntöjen vaihtoon muiden yrittäjien kanssa
  • verkostoja ja pääsyn oikeille oville

Join as member!

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If you wish to become ArcticStartup blog sponsor, please see more information here. If you are interested in sponsoring our ArcticEvening events, please contact events (at) arcticstartup.com.

Venture Capital 2.0: Grow VC Launches Private Beta (We Have Invites)

by Miikka Kukkosuo, June 30, 2009 — 4 Comments
Venture Capital 2.0: Grow VC Launches Private Beta (We Have Invites)
Grow VC launches today an invitiation-only private beta of their “Venture Capital 2.0″ service. Grow VC aims to better enable early stage funding for mobile and web 2.0 startup companies by community-based approach. The investment size Grow VC is looking to facilitate ranges from USD $10,000 to $1M. Grow VC has been founded by Finnish serial entrepreneurs Jouko Ahvenainen and Valto Loikkanen.
The problem Grow VC is trying to solve is the traditional venture capital said being too locally-focused, and difficult and cumbersome to obtain for many new web and mobile startups needing smaller investments. The founders state that VC firms do nowadays not need or want to get involved with smaller investments, though web and mobile 2.0 startups do not need big funding in the early stage. Another problem Grow VC is looking to solve is the difficulty of attracting angel investors outside the entrepreneurs’  local network and on the other hand angels’ lack of a structure for global diversification of risk.
The plans for the service are big. Valto Loikkanen, Co-Founder and CEO, explains that they want to establish the first truly transparent, international, and community-based approach to early stage funding. The service allows entrepreneurs and investors to find and connect with each other globally. It also provides tools for facilitating the process, and information is shared transparently in the community, offering interactive approach to funding instead of the traditional one-sided VC process. The public launch of Grow VC will follow later in 2009, and is said to include “more innovative investment methods”, whatever it means.
The service seems like a quite normal web community in that entrepreneurs and investors create profiles of themselves and their businesses. Everyone’s profile will be open for community comments to allow for reputation building. During the private Beta one can join free with an invitation, but later on Grow VC will collect membership fees starting from USD $150, based on the size of the funding. Part of the private Beta is already a partner program, in which different local or regional incubators, event organisers, law firms, and similar service providers can make themselves known to the service community.
If you want to try out the service, we have 50 invitations for ArcticStartup readers: the code is AS50.

Grow VC logoGrow VC launches today an invitiation-only private beta of their “Venture Capital 2.0″ service. Grow VC aims to better enable early stage funding for mobile and web 2.0 startup companies by using a community-based approach. The size of investments Grow VC is looking to facilitate ranges from USD $10,000 to $1M. Grow VC has been founded by Finnish serial entrepreneurs Jouko Ahvenainen and Valto Loikkanen.

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TheVideoBay to compete with YouTube?

by Antti Vilpponen, June 29, 2009 — Leave a Comment

TheVideoBay logoSlashdot has an article about a new project coming from very interesting people, the guys behind ThePirateBay, competing against YouTube. Peter Sunde was questioned a few years ago in the Spectrial oral proceedings about a project they were working on that would compete with YouTube. Back then he answered the prosecutor that it was a project that failed. However, it seems that the Norwegian-Finnish computer guru has been working on the project since then. As it happens, TheVideoBay is about to be launched.

So what’s the catch behind TheVideoBay? The most notable one is the fact that it uses a totally different technology for the media files than other sites out there. TheVideBay aims to take advantage of the new features in HTML5, more notably the <video> and <audio> tags with the ogg/theora video and audio formats.

The site itself is in its very stages of infancy and you cannot really talk about a functioning service just yet. One is able to browse the material there, but once you click on an audio or a video file, the user is prompted for a username and password.

Videobay

There is no word on the launch schedule of the site or what other features it will have, compared to YouTube for example. Nevertheless, it is great to see some action coming out from ThePirateBay guys even though they must be going through difficult times.

ArcticEvening Copenhagen (Video)

by Ville Vesterinen, June 26, 2009 — Leave a Comment

Here’s a taste of some of the magic that happened at the ArcticEvening event last Wednesday. Thanks for all the startups that presented and the incredible cool people present.

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ArcticEvening Copenhagen – A Full House Of Excitement

by Ville Vesterinen, June 25, 2009 — 3 Comments

We had another amazing ArcticEvening event yesterday. This time we were at Copenhagen Denmark gathering local startups together to spread their love and tell the community about their products. The event ended up being on the eve of Reboot conference and needless to say we had wonderful time with many people in town for both events. A full house of passionate people either interested in entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs themselves.

We had altogether 16 startups presenting, each having 3 minutes to tell how they’re planning on changing the world. And so they did. We filmed all of them and are now busy editing the footage, and will pushed it out to you guys as soon as we have the videos ready. It was a great evening and I had a blast. Thank you Copenhagen!

Before we get the videos out, here are captions that Paula got on film.

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Lapland Studios First Finnish Game Studio To Design For Nintendo Wii

by Antti Vilpponen, June 25, 2009 — Leave a Comment

Lapland Studio logoKauppalehti had a good article on one of the less known Finnish game studios, Lapland Studio. They are a small game studio located up in Rovaniemi, Finland and are designing games for many platforms, from mobile phones to the latest new market Nintendo Wii. The company was founded in 2004 and has a revenue of about 420 000 euros for year 2008. They have been steadily growing and avoiding creating too much loss as they grow, the largest loss in 2007 worth less than 10 000 euros.

Lapland Studios has been previously providing outsourcing services to advertising agencies, film studios as well as some game developers. They also have two seperate subsidiary companies; Mine Studios and Inaria Interactive. Mine Studios concentrate on mobile games while Inaria Interactive will expand into the console gaming market.
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Part 1: Finnish And Swedish Strongholds In Renewable Energy

by Päivi Kangasmäki, June 24, 2009 — 3 Comments

15_12_5_thumbLet’s take a short overview on Nordic strongholds and current renewable energy promotion instruments in these countries. We are happy to start with Finland and Sweden, which have some similarities (and differences) together.

Over 60 per cent of Nordic electricity production and about one third of Finland’s electricity generation is based on renewable energy sources: hydro, bio-fuels and wind. For next years, wind power is central growth area for Nordic countries to meet EU’s goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. By now, wind power plants have been build mainly on coastlines. In the next phase, numerous wind power plants will be constructed offshoe. Hydropower is important as natural regulating power to wind generation in Nordic countries. Becouse wind speeds are not constant, regulating power is needed to compensate for fluctuation in wind power production. (Please look at Fortum’s Technology Brochure) Continue reading »

Comparison of countries – Finland, Sweden and Denmark

by Antti Vilpponen, June 24, 2009 — 4 Comments

finland_sweden_denmarkAs I was looking at through the companies presenting tonight at the ArcticEvening Copenhagen (it’s going to be a very good event by the way!), I noticed that almost, if not all of them are business-to-business companies. This is an interesting trend in my opinion as Finland and Sweden are in my opinion more oriented towards the consumer market.

Finland, which I know best, is very oriented towards the consumer market in terms of internet oriented startups. We have our share of b2b startups as well and if we go back a bit we can remember that SteelTeam acquired Christoffer Landtman’s CompanyCube operating in the steel industry. Then again we need to remember that Jaiku was acquired by Google so there are acquisitions on both fronts. Unfortunately there aren’t many more cases that could be given as examples.
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Mobile Payment Solutions Developer Accumulate Lands VC Funding

by Miikka Kukkosuo, June 23, 2009 — Leave a Comment
Accumulate logoAccumulate, a Swedish mobile payment and security solution provider, received an investment from The Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund (The Sixth AP Fund; Sjätte AP-fonden). The Sixth AP fund is the so called Swedish state fund for long-term risk capital, investing in small and medium-sized growth companies. http://www.apfond6.se/en/
The size of the investment has not been disclosed.
Accumulate had an angel round in 2008 in which Carl Palmstierna, a famous Swedish business angel, and Patric Svanberg invested in the company. Carl Palmstierna is currently the chairman of the board.
Accumulate’s CEO and co-founder Stefan Hultberg comments that the cash will be used in expanding the business of Accumulate’s mobile service platform Flexion and its new mobile security solution, which is in an establishment phase.
The mobile service platform Flexion allows for flexible pricing and license control of mobile applications and games, and is managed by Accumulate’s UK subsidiary. The company has business for example with Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung, and despite strong revenue growth needed new cash for working capital due to the notoriously long payment cycles in the mobile business. Accumulate will also strengthen its operations team. Accumulate claims to have served 6 million end users up to date.
Accumulate’s mobile security solution can be utilized for example for securing credit card purchases and person-to-person money transfers, for secure logins and signing, and enabling payments by mobile phone. The first pilot project is starting next month, according to Stefan. Also an OpenID based solution is coming still this summer. Stefan identifies the banking segment as the most interesting target for the solution, though they can be slow in adapting new technology. In addition, Accumulate is also interested in other industries and especially the enterprise security market. In order to reach the enterprise market Accumulate will utilize a channel sales strategy, having just a couple weeks ago hired a channel sales manager for building up the partnerships.
The press release (in Swedish; here is Google translated version).

Accumulate logoAccumulate, a Swedish mobile payment and security solution provider, has received an investment from The Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund (The Sixth AP Fund; Sjätte AP-fonden). The Sixth AP fund is the so called Swedish state fund for longterm risk capital, investing in small and medium-sized growth companies.  The size of the investment has not been disclosed.

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ArcticEvening Going Copenhagen – Last Chance To Get A Ticket

by Ville Vesterinen, June 22, 2009 — Leave a Comment

ArcticEvening

To continue our ArcticEvening tour around Northern Europe we will be organising an ArcticEvening in Copenhagen, Denmark on 24th June. The date is set so that it is in the eve of the awesome reboot conference.

We have still some 20 tickets or so left and you can reserve your free ticket here or at below. Go get your now!

We are going with a different format this time (no panel) and want to bring out all the best startups in the region. We have a amazing line up coming.

Here’s the list of startups that will be presenting (we also might add a few extra appearances). The presentations start at 18.30 sharp(!), so be there in time.
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The Pirates Of Sweden

by Paula Marttila, June 18, 2009 — 7 Comments

 Since the recently held European Election I keep getting questions about the Swedish Pirate Party and the Pirate Bay trial. I agree it might get a bit confusing trying to follow the evolving news on both, and while adding the newly enabled IPRED law to the equation one starts to wonder if, and how, it’s all connected. Here’s a summary hoping to bring some light into the current events. (Note: All link sources are in English, unless otherwise noted, mostly referring to The Register and Wired, who, imho, have been doing a very good job covering both stories outside Sweden.)

Firstly, to clear things up, The Pirate Party is unaffiliated with the Piratbyran, ”The Piracy Bureau”, which lies behind “the world’s largest Bit Torrent tracker”, The Pirate Bay. For example, Peter Sunde, the spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, has never been a member of the Pirate Party and voted for the Green Party at the recent European Election. 

As widely reported, the European Election was a huge victory for the Swedish Pirate Party receiving 7,1% of the Swedish votes leaving three other established parties behind, as well as resulting to at least one seat in the European Parliament.  

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MoiPal Begins Partnership With Voice

by Antti Vilpponen, June 18, 2009 — Leave a Comment

moipal and voiceMoiPal, the Finnish social gaming service has signed a marketing partnership with the Finnish music television Voice. MoiPal is the work of Ironstar Helsinki being directed by Joakim Achrén. Ironstar Helsinki also made front page on ArcticStartup when Monty Widenius announced his investment into the company. Voice is the independent Finnish music radio and television channel.
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Thank You Sponsors

by Sponsor, June 17, 2009 — Leave a Comment

This is our periodic thank you note to our blog sponsors to describe what they have to offer.

Sun Startup Essentials logoThe Sun Startup Essentials program is specifically designed to help startups get their business off the ground FAST with the right IT infrastructure at the LOWEST COST possible. This program is available in many countries throughout the world. You can also go directly to your local country’s Sun Startup Essentials program web page to learn more.

Ohjelmistoyrittäjät logo

The Finnish Software Entrepreneurs Association is a non-aligned association for innovative, professional, growth-friven and entrepreneurial software business executives. Association drives the success of software business as an industry and supports individual software companies in their road to success.

Ohjelmistoyrittäjät ry on sitoutumaton, kasvuhakuisten ja yrittäjähenkisten ohjelmistoyritysten johdon yhteisö sekä ohjelmistoalan kehittäjä ja edunvalvoja Kehitämme kasvuhakuisten ohjelmistoyritysten toimintaedellytyksiä. Tavoitteenamme on, että yhä useampi suomalainen kasvuyritys ylittää kasvua rajoittavat esteet ja siirtyy kansainvälisille markkinoille.

Jäsenyys tarkoittaa

  • kokemusta ja mentorointia liiketoiminnan ammattilaisilta
  • apua liiketoiminnan kehittämiseen
  • sparrausta kasvuun haasteiden voittamiseksi
  • konkretiaa kansainvälistymisen käynnistämiseksi ja toteuttamiseksi
  • mahdollisuuden ajatusten, näkemysten ja parhaiden käytäntöjen vaihtoon muiden yrittäjien kanssa
  • verkostoja ja pääsyn oikeille oville

Join as member!

—-

If you wish to become ArcticStartup blog sponsor, please see more information here. If you are interested in sponsoring our ArcticEvening events, please contact events (at) arcticstartup.com.

Nosco Turns Innovation Management Into A Stock Market Game

by Miikka Kukkosuo, June 17, 2009 — Leave a Comment
Nosco is a Danish startup specialized in idea management.
Nosco offers a product they call Idea Exchange, an idea management tool for corporations of any size. With Idea Exchange Nosco promises to help to optimize processes, cut costs, and identify new opportunities by using the collective wisdom of the employees. Idea Exchange is based on the concept of prediction markets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_Markets
Prediction markets offer real-time forecasts on selected matters based on the knowledge and information held by the participants. Nosco’s Idea Exchange is said to mimic the functionality of a virtual stock market game, but in Idea Exchange instead of stocks there are questions like “will we meet the deadline?” Others can then participate in the game and share their knowledge and expectations by trading; buying in or selling out based on whether they think the deadline will be met or not. This way the current “price” forms a reliable forecast of whether or not the deadline will actually be met.
There can any amount of participants, each having a certain amount of “money” to use in investing. Anyone can create new ideas to be valued in the market, also anonymously, and multiple persons can contribute in creating the same idea.
Organizations could use Idea Exchange for example to help in broadening the design and execution of strategies, and engaging employees in creating constant improvements.

Nosco logoNosco is a Danish startup specializing in idea and innovation management. The firm offers a product they call Idea Exchange, an idea management tool for corporations of any size. With Idea Exchange Nosco promises to help to optimize processes, cut costs, and identify new opportunities by using the collective wisdom of the employees. Idea Exchange is based on the concept of prediction markets, and it is about buying and selling shares in new ideas. Continue reading »