Nevermind Finland: 20 Hot Estonian Startups [Part 2/3]
This is the second part of our coverage on Estonia, following our recent Baltic tour. If you'd like to find our more about Baltic entrepreneurship, we recommend you join this Facebook groupand Linkedin group.
In addition to Erply, Zeroturnaround and Fortumo which we listed in part 1, I’ve compiled a list of the ones that are the most promising or already succeful Estonian startups. Keep in mind this is in no way a definitive list. There are plenty more in stealth mode or really early stage and hopefully you'll hear from them soon.
Nevermind Finland: Here's Estonia! [Part 1/3]
Two weeks ago, we decided to drive to the Baltics together with people from AaltoVG, to promote the Finnish startup scene, find great stories, and build stronger collaboration with the region. There is too little interaction between the Baltics. Each country stands as a standalone, tiny market, forced to internationalize to make a difference. We believe that if we can collaborate more with our nearby neighbors, great things will happen! This is my first article in a series of posts about the Baltics.
ArcticStartup And AaltoVG Go Baltics!
This is an exciting week for the Nordic startup scene: each country has seen a boom in startup activity during the recent months, so we have decided to organize a road trip together with AaltoVG, in an effort to bring the community closer.
The idea is to meet with the actors of each country, find new and interesting startup stories, potential partners, and friends!
Lithuania Steps Up its Game
Finland and Estonia aren’t the only growing hotbeds for entrepreneurship in the Baltics. Since our coverage a few months ago, the Lithuanian startup community has made very significant progress placing the country on the entrepreneurial map. Here is an overview of these recent developments.
GetJar Says Mobile Apps Market Becomes Bigger Than The Internet. We Don't Think So
In an interview with Econsultancy, GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs talked about his vision for apps and how they will take over the internet. We disagree.
GetJar is the world’s second largest mobile app store founded in Lithuania offering over 57,000 apps for all mobile devices and serving over 55m downloads per month. To date they have achieved over 750m downloads and attracted 300,000 registered developers and 50,000 registered beta testers.
In the interview Laurs' says that the battle of the app stores will culminate in a dramatic change to the market over the next 12-18 months, and at least 90% of app stores will fail. Further, the importance of global mobile billing will become critical: Several $10M-a-year mobile app businesses will appear in 2010 as the apps market gathers momentum. The billing processes and agreements will improve in 2011 and 2012, stimulating the app economy and the rise of the $100m app businesses.
The Bad And The Ugly: Entrepreneurship In Europe and In Northern Europe
This is one of those issues that is always topical and never gets a clear answer. Why do we comparatively suck so bad at building companies in Europe and especially here in the arctic latitudes vis-a-vis our cousins in the US. In the age of the Internet and 'born global' it has to be more than the size of the home market. Now, I'm not saying things have to be that way, nor am I saying that things are not changing. They are and we, but to what extent and what is it exactly that we need to change?
Here's a video of a group of prominent European and US entrepreneurs arguing around the topic. The one just below is from this year's LeWeb and the one below that from 2008 (when we took the Sauna Truck to France with a group of Finnish startups). Both videos are insightful, but even more than that they are entertaining. Make sure not to miss these.
The third video is Mårten Mickos' brilliant talk about entrepreneurship in general and entrepreneurship in Finland in particular from last night at Aalto Entrepreneurs Society gathering. The talk is a must see for every single entrepreneur regardless of the continent they are building their startup in, but it also sheds light into the cultural challenges that are in the way of building world's biggest anything.
Joi Ito Is Still Investing, Despite Downturn
I had a chat in LeWeb with Joi Ito of Neoteny. He is also the CEO of Creative Commons and on board of numerous companies and non profits. Joi, like other investors in LeWeb, are still investing despite the downturn but like he said - it's easier to make out the better companies from the noise in times of economic crisis. He also has some tips for Nordic and Baltic companies, so do have a look.
What's Your Need Of Financing?
i2m - Ideas to market, a UK based research firm, has released some very interesting figures in terms of startup financing, according to Sun Startup Essential Blogs. They have researched some 800 entrepreneurs and small business owners over a variety of areas.
The key findings of the financial research has shown that about 40% of startups seek under 10,000 GBP to become profitable while 30% seek between 10,000 and 100,000 GBP to become profitable. Only about 15% of startups seek more than 100,000 GBP to become profitable.
In the findings, Permjot Valia, a business angel and member of the British Business Angel Association describes that the engine of Britain's entrepreneurial industry is friends and family. If you take this thinking to the Nordics, I'd say the results would be tilted towards the 100k€ mark.
This of course raises questions of other sorts - are we really able to bootstrap up here? Do we take the financial status for granted and regard that something as of a given right even in a startup? Provocative questions to ask, but what are your thoughts - which category would you reckon would be the largest in your home country?
Photo by jenn_jenn.
Library House Lists 100 Hottest Mediatech Companies
Library House, a research house on startups and other fast growing ventures, has listed 100 of the hottest mediatech companies in Europe. The 100 companies were selected by analysing companies using Library House proprietary data and an expert advisory panel. Library House also states that these 100 companies are the ones that will most likely change the mediatech world (mediatech meaning media and technology).
To our joy, we can find 3 Nordic companies in the top 10 list; Blyk (Finland), Sulake (Finland) and Stardoll (Sweden). Other companies in the top 10 were Flirtomatic (UK), MOO (UK), Where Are You Now? (UK), Dailymotion (France), King.com (UK), Playfish (UK) and Plastic Logic (UK). It's interesting to see that there is a healthy spread of gaming and entertainment companies in the top 10 as well as to note the absence of any media companies per se.
Other Nordic companies in the list were CCP (Iceland), Spotify (Sweden, Luxembourg), Betware (Iceland) and Xtract (Finland). The fact that most of the companies are from the UK or Central European countries pretty much states the overlooking of the Baltic market in total (I believe they are part of Europe, at least the last time I looked). Then again, this is exactly one of the reasons why I set about with ArcticStartup a little over a year ago - to give more insight to the Baltic and Nordic startup industries. Seems like we still have plenty of work to do.
Good Times: Rest in Peace
The recent weeks' downturn in the global economy has dramatically tightened the availability of funding for companies, not only startups but large companies alike. The downturn that started from the US with the uncovering off the sub-prime "fraud" has echoed its effects to all corners of the world as connections between financing houses begin to unravel.
Sequioa Capital, one of the most famous startup financing houses in the US, has held a secret meeting earlier this week. A slideshow from the meeting has fled to the public unraveling the contents of the meeting - short and long term scenarios for the world economy. The contents of the document are not very positive. If the name of the presentation is "RIP - Good times", I think it says all.
I've also heard while discussing with Nordic entrepreneurs that the financing market has, also in Europe, tightened dramatically. This of course means that those seeking funding rounds form the public will face tougher times in years.
I'm expecting we'll see a huge rise in applications to the government institutions that support and finance entrepreneurs as the private markets tighten. It is natural for entrepreneurs to seek financing at all costs, as it is their only way to survive if they do not have a positive cashflow. This however, in my opinion and even at the cost of receiving a ton of hate mail, does not give the institutions any right to loosen their funding - just to support the companies and keep people employed.
This may seem harsh, but the Nordic startup scene is still very small in terms of employment and thus does not pose a great threat to the GDP. Times like these serve as natural ways to bring about healthy change to the markets with companies that are truly innovative and have a chance of becoming profitable in the near future (ie. are already showing healthy amounts of revenue).
One must also remember that even in difficult times, it is usually the strongest that survive - creating more value in the long run to the individuals as well as economies they serve.
List of Finnish Startups
Timo Paloheimo has listed a good bunch of Finnish web startups in The Next Web using various sources, including his own blog Startupbin and ArcticStartup. He's also categorized them quite extensively under different subgroups, including e.g. social networking, e-commerce, business tools, and mobile. The list is likely nowhere complete, though, and there have been some additions already in the comments section in Startupbin.
We at ArcticStartup recognize there isn't any good way of easily getting comprehensive information about the startups in Finland, or in other Nordic and Baltic countries for that matter, at the moment. That's why we have been working on Nordic and Baltic wide ‘CrunchBase’, which should come out very soon. Our hope is that a common startup directory will benefit everybody in the industry. Stay tuned, we'll reveal more soon!
