From Google over Apple to the Start-up next door, nearly every company today uses web hosting services or has huge server farms at their disposal so that their services can run smoothly. That much of this energy to run these data centers comes from fossil fuels or even nuclear energy is probably known, but ignored. However, “green” web hosting is growing at a rapid pace to become an important category, so its no surprise that more and more data centers and web hosting providers are looking at opportunities to green their services. Verne Global from Iceland is looking to shake up the game and provide a reliable, cheap and 100% green data centre solution starting from 2010.
Verne Global – Iceland’s Green Data Center
Spotify Pays 30 Cents For 100 Album Playbacks
The Finnish Heavy Metal band Mokoma, has publicly thanked Spotify for their payout model. Their Facebook fan page states that for “every 100 album playbacks we get 30 euro cents from Spotify. Thanks Spotify.” The deals that Spotify has struck with different artists have been kept secret, so it is not known if this is the only payout model. However, if there were 1000 people listening to an album and to my understanding would listen it through, Mokoma would get 3 €.
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Tero Salonen On How Dazzboard Entered The US Market (Video)
During our trip to the Silicon Valley we aimed to meet people who have experience from the Northern Europe on one hand, and from the Silicon Valley on the other to get the bottom of the differences between the two places. This is the second post of the series. See also the first post here.
I talked to Tero Salonen of Dazzboard (see our earlier story on Dazzboard here) and he told me how he first entered the US market and got the first contact there through Finnpro (the Finnish Export Association) and Plug and Play Tech Center, what resources he used and what are the next steps for Dazzboard in getting established in the US market. Not only that, Tero actually broke it down how much it cost him to do all of this. Tero wanted to emphasize to us that even though he happens to be a Finn, there are plenty of startups from other Nordic and Baltic countries at the Plug and Play Tech Center. See the video below.
Eat.fi Finally Rolls Out Its Business Model
Eat.fi, a Finnish website that focuses on restaurant search and reviews, finally rolls out its business model after building the high quality site and community for three years. The company, quite predictably, has chosen to let the restaurant owners advertise their lunch time specials and other offers.
Even though you could argue that is has taken way too long for the founder Tina Aspiala to monetize the site, it might have been worth the wait. Eat.fi is one of the only Finnish sites that I use regularly when checking out new restaurants and especially while making lunch and dinner meetings. To get an idea of the popularity of the site, Eat.fi iPhone app topped the Finnish App Store and boasts currently about 12,000 downloads (and 2,000 Ovi Store downloads).
Silverbakk Monitors Your Social Media Activity
Sweden has got its own social media monitoring tool, Silverbakk Briefing Room (we recently wrote about Icelandic Clara). Silverbakk measures influence, visibility and engagement in social media, probably the hottest topic at the moment besides real-time search and augmented reality. The company launched its product only three weeks ago promising an easy to use tool to start monitoring ones company, brand, event or competitors in just 60 seconds.
Futuremark Game Studios Release Shattered Horizon
The Finnish company Futuremark, who has been previously known to be the leader in 3D, mobile and PC benchmarking, has released a game called Shattered Horizon on Steam. The company has been around since 1997 and was previously known as Mad Onion. Benchmarking is the practice of determining the capabilities of graphical processors in different computer environments. Futuremark has released annually new releases of their 3DMark to test each new feature of the cards to determine how well they run.
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Where To Build Your Startup: Differences Between VC Firms (Video)
During our trip to the Silicon Valley we aimed to meet people who have experience from the Northern Europe on one hand, and from the Silicon Valley on the other to get the bottom of the differences between the two places .
Especially we wanted to know what their advice would be for the aspiring young startups that try to figure out whether it’s worth to relocate to the Silicon Valley from Nordic or Baltic countries, or whether the whole Silicon Valley hype is just hot air and Northern Europe is just as good a location to build a startup as any.
Here Mia Lewin, a Finn, a former VC and an entrepreneur, talks about the differences between VC firms between Europe and the Silicon Valley, how to figure out where to locate and how Mia herself plans to build her startup and raise funding. See the video below.
Maintain Your Sticky Notes Online With Listhings.com
Listhings.com is a new Estonian “eco-friendly” online web tool for storing sticky notes about anything from To-Do lists to grocery lists and phone numbers.
The man behind the project is Martin Tajur, also Creative Director and co-founder of United Dogs and Cats (see our previous coverage). Martin has also worked as a graphical and user experience designer at Skype.
Biogas Feed-In Tariff Kicks Biower Onto A Growth Path
Finland recently introduced the national goal of increasing the share of renewable energy to 60 per cent of total energy consumption. That is okay but the most important fact I think, is that Finland will finally introduce a set of financial and tax incentives to promote the development and piloting of clean technologies. It is time to walk the talk. For Finnish startups, it is essential to have opportunities for pilot references in their home market to enable further growth abroad.
Finland’s plan to introduce a biogas feed-in tariff is moving forward: the target price for the biogas feed-in tariff is €83.5 per MWh for power production and €50 per MWh when utilizing CHP (combined heat and power). According to the plan, this would only concern plants that produce more than 300 KVA of electricity. This supports fairly large plant sizes, which exceed the suggested parameters and provide adequate return on investments.
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Sponsor Post: Culminatum Innovation To Strongly Support Internationalisation Efforts
Culminatum Innovations has come up with a totally new program to generate better growth companies from the digital content and services sector in Finland. The program is called International Business Program and it has several stages. The companies participating in the clinic this year may be eligible for 10 000 euros worth of internationalisation services.
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Verkkokauppa.com Founder A Private Investor In The Making
Today, Kauppalehti wrote that the Finnish computer electronics store founder and owner Samuli Seppälä is going to take the company public in a few years time. He’s doing this with the help of the Swedish private investment company Rite Internet Ventures who have invested 3 million euros to the company with a 15% stake. This brings the company’s valuation to a mere 20 million euros. Why do I say a mere 20 million euros, you might ask. The reason is simple, the company’s 2008 turnover was about 140 million euros with 2,4 million euro profit before taxes and amortisation.
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Easing Website Development Is A Big Money Business
I bumped into Mikko Nurminen a few years ago and was immediately fascinated with their business. He’s one of the co-founders of Ideakone and they own products such as Kotisivukone and Moogo as they’re known in English. They’re in the business of easing website development through modular plug and play features. We’ve recently written about one of their Estonian competitors Edicy and since there seems to be a lot of well developed business here, I thought of getting back in touch with Mikko and interview him on where they stand today.
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Michel Wendell On The Big Opportunities In The Mobile Space (Video)
We bumped into Michel Wendell of Nexit Ventures (a VC firm focusing on mobile and wireless communication) during our Silicon Valley trip and asked him where does Nexit Ventures see the next big opportunities in the mobile space. See the video below.
Fruugo Secures More Financing From Current Shareholders
According to a Finnish business periodical, Talouselämä, Fruugo has secured more financing from its current shareholders, Jorma Ollila, Risto Siilasmaa and others. We previously wrote about Fruugo laying off 40% of its staff to cut its burn rate. At the moment, 25-30 people work at Fruugo.
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Dodreams Receives A Major Investment From Top Finnish Investors
Dodreams Oy, a Finnish MMO-gaming company, has received a major investment from some of the top Finnish investors working with early stage companies. Dodreams offers portal and media companies tournament system software and services to combine MMO gaming with mass media. They recently worked with MTV3, the largest commercial television channel in Finland, to launch and host the Maailmannopeinkansa.fi -game (translates to world’s fastest people). The amount of the investment was not disclosed, but the investors are Veraventure Oy, Risto Siilasmaa (F-Secure founder), Optiomi Invest Oy and the private investor Klaus Berner. The amount and status of the investors in the Finnish ecosystem puts the investment, with my educated guess, roughly in the area of 500 000 – 1 000 000 €.
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