#Estonianmafia Is Going Strong: GateMe Wins At SeedCamp London
Tallinn based Gateme won at the latest SeedCamp event, which shows just how strong the ArcticStartup region really is. For some reason each time somebody wins at Seedcamp, it forces me to wonder what it really means to the company. Now in case I am not alone in forgetting how the Seedcamp process works, I will quickly tell you just what Gateme got themselves into.
Basically the way Seedcamp works is first you apply for having a chance to pitch at one of their worldwide events, such as the one that took place in London. This time around there were over 400 applications from 46 countries. Then a number of those are selected for a full day mentoring event where the top 5 are selected. Gateme was one of those Top 5.
Apply Today To New Finnish Competition To Learn Which Entrepreneurs Are "Of Iron"
A new public competition is attempting to shake up the perception of entrepreneurship as a career path in Finland. Harva on Rautaa (literally "few of us are iron" - taken from a 70's Finnhits song) will select one Finnish entrepreneur per city and have them battle each other for five months. Progress can be followed on their website, where they plan on publishing one at least one video clip every day of the week. Finnish entrepreneurs can also apply with a deadline of today.
The competition is being put together by Pasi Ilola, and is supported by the Software Entrepreneurs Association (Ohjelmistoyrittäjät), Teknologiateollisuus, Tekes, Microsoft and others.
Here Are This Year's Arctic15 Finalists
This year's Arctic15 is just a little over a month away and we're ready to announce the 14 finalists (the last finalist is decided by Tekes) that will be on stage to compete for the grand prize, that is now almost €30 000 in cash and prizes. During last week, we received almost votes from almost 3000 people in total. Some categories were clearer than others, but overall - it was still a very tight competition. The 14 finalists are listed below.
Arctic15 Startup Competition Now Open!
We've opened the flood gates with Arctic15 and we're coming out with lots of news these days. The latest being the opening of the Arctic15 startup competition. Like said in a post earlier this year, we will do the startup competition in a slightly different way. We have 15 different categories that startups can submit themselves into and through those we will find the winners of each category that will get a chance to pitch themselves on stage in October.
Microsoft Finland To Send A Team To Imagine Cup
Editorial note: This is a sponsored blog post by Microsoft as part of their series Hear it from startups.
Imagine Cup is an annual competition aimed at students worldwide, who are looking to change the world. Each year students compete against each other in many different categories for the best application. Applications are judged by their real world potential in changing the world, but also how viable they are business wise.
This year the finals will take place in Sydney, Australia and Microsoft Finland will be sending one team from Finland to the finals. The team however, has to win the semi-finals in Finland first.
Imagine Cup has multiple different categories available, but if you choose to enter the competition local semi-finals will be held for the Windows Phone Challenge as well as the Software Design categories.
Maxygen, Qminder, Zonear Win At Startup Sauna Demo Day
Maxygen, Qminder, and Zonear all won the Fall 2011 Startup Sauna Demo Day here in Helsinki. It was an interesting event, with a nice Keynote by Om Malik the founder of GigaOm. On top of that there were some solid and entertaining pitches, and the StartUp Sauna guys put on a good show.
Maxygen is producing an interesting product on the social level. From what I understand, they do cheap and quick DNA testing through a device they built, which can tell doctors whether or not you have an infectious disease. Currently hospitals provide this service through their laboratories, but not every hospital has this access in developing countries.
Startups: One More Day To Apply To Arctic15!
Startups, you've got one more day to apply to Arctic15 the startup competition. Deadline for the applications close tomorrow evening at midnight. Fore more information on the competition and rules - head over to the Arctic15 website, where you'll also find the link to submit the application.
Nordic And Baltic Startups: Launch At Arctic15!
Is your company still in development mode, but looking to launch a product or a service later this year to the public, or in open beta? How would you like to attract hundreds of influential users to your service while speaking in front of a huge crowd of investors and other opinion leaders? Without sounding too much like a telemarketer, all this is possible if you wish to apply to the Arctic15 competition. All you need to do is fill out this form.
Winners Of Venture Cup Idea Competition In Denmark
Venture Cup Idea Competition in Denmark is an annual business idea competition that takes place at the end of the calendar year. The winners are chosen early next year in five categories: applied technology, cleantech, lifesciences, services and software. The winner in each category receives 25 000 DKK (roughly 3,300€) to kick-start their project. Essentially, the competition is an instrument to reveal the most promising business ideas in the various sectors and help them take the first steps in realizing them. We looked at the technology companies that made it to the final to discover the new innovation coming from Denmark in 2011.
Want 250k€ to develop your media company?
Last night Helsingin Sanomat Foundation held an event where they launched Uutisraivaaja, a competition where participants can win up to 250 000 euros to develop their killer media product, with a few "ifs" on the side. While the event was held completely in Finnish leaving English speaking out of the equation at his point, the fantastic part of all this is that the competition is open to everyone, be it companies, individual people or non-Finnish citizens for that matter. Creating an innovative media product isn't easy. Helsingin Sanomat Foundation is obviously looking to speed up innovation in this sector and I applaud them for it.
However, there are a few terms to the deal that I didn't like too much. While the 250 000 euros is up for grabs, the criteria to win it are partly debatable. There are basically three criteria participants must meet: 1) the idea should be groundbreaking, 2) the idea must first be tested in Finland on a national level or a local level and 3) (the part I don't like too much) if digital technology is used, it should be open source in such a way that anyone is able to use it afterwards.
Reminder: Elevator Pitch Competition - Apply Now
This is a reminder that the applications for the Elevator Pitch Competition on June 1st need to be sent in at the latest by May 6th 8:00 PM EET to events (at) arcticstartup.com.
All Baltic and Nordic startups and growth companies are welcome to apply. The applications to the Pitch Competition must be made using this form.
The Elevator Pitch Competition is organized as part of the Third Annual Tallinn Conference by The International Technology Law Association and Enterprise Estonia. The conference will be held at the Swissotel Tallinn during May 31-June 1, and the Elevator Pitch Competition will take place in the afternoon of June 1, 2010.
See the details on the competition. You can now also register to the conference.
The conference theme this year is Preparing The Technology Company For Breakout: Challenges and Tools for the Nordic Region. Last year the conference drew in VCs, entrepreneurs and business owners, and naturally business lawyers (of the good type...) from all over the Nordic and Baltic countries, and also many guests from the USA.
To top it off, ArcticStartup will also organize ArcticEvening Tallinn in the evening of June 1st, to wrap up the conference and the pitch competition, and to create a networking forum for the international bunch in the city. Mark it in your calendar and stay tuned for more info!
--
Photo by cpalmieri (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
Get Your Pitch Ready For VCs And Win - Announcing Elevator Pitch Competition
We are proud to announce, for the second year in a row, an Elevator Pitch Competition for all Baltic and Nordic startups and growth companies, to be held in Tallinn on June 1st.
The jury of the competition consists of pan-Nordic-Baltic VCs, so this is a perfect opportunity to put yourself on the radar and get valuable feedback on your pitch from experienced financiers. We also have great prizes for the winners.
The applications to the Pitch Competition must be done using this form.
Please send your application to events (at) arcticstartup.com latest by May 6th 8:00 PM EET. Finalists will be announced by May 12th.
The Elevator Pitch Competition is organized as part of the Third Annual Tallinn Conference by The International Technology Law Association and Enterprise Estonia. The conference will be held at the Swissotel Tallinn during May 31-June 1, and the Elevator Pitch Competition will take place in the afternoon of June 1, 2010.
The conference theme this year is Preparing The Technology Company For Breakout: Challenges and Tools for the Nordic Region. Last year the conference drew in VCs, entrepreneurs and business owners, and naturally business lawyers (of the good type...) from all over the Nordic and Baltic countries, and also many guests from the USA. Registration is now open.
And that's not all - ArcticStartup will also organize ArcticEvening Tallinn in the evening of June 1st, to wrap up the conference and the pitch competition, and to create a networking forum for the international bunch in the city. Mark it in your calendar and stay tuned for more info!
Multitouch Wins The MindTrek Launchpad
The winner of the MindTrek Launchpad 2009, a pitching competition for statups at MindTrek, has just been announced on stage. This year's winner is Multitouch, a Finnish table- and wall-sized multitouch display manufacturer.
The winner receives € 20,009 and of course a major publicity boost. Congratulations to Multitouch!
This year, just as last year, the short list included some promising companies and some complete misses. Also they were from a broad variety of industries, ranging from hardware manufacturer (Multitouch) to a Facebook game (Kamu World).
Compared to the quality of last year's startup pitches at Mindtrek Launchpad, this year saw a big improvement. The pitches were better structured and more coherent. A good pitch does not equal a successful company, but it's part of it.
Reminder: Elevator Pitch Contest for Nordic & Baltic Firms
This is a reminder for all interested startups in the Nordic and Baltic countries to apply for the upcoming elevator pitch contest, to learn from venture capitalists and other startups and win free world-class consulting.
The instructions on how to apply can be found in our original post, hurry up!
The contest is open to all technology startups in the region.
The pitch contest is organized on 26th May 2009 in Tallinn, Estonia in conjunction with the Second Annual Tallinn Conference of The International Technology Law Association.
See also the detailed conference agenda (PDF).
Open For Applications: Elevator Pitch Contest
Update: The deadline is extended until May 13th.
The conference agenda can now be downloaded from the event home page (or use this PDF direct link).
ArcticStartup is proud to present an opportunity for all Baltic and Nordic startups to connect with and pitch to venture capitalists and compete for great prizes.
In alignment with the Second Annual Tallinn Conference organized by The International Technology Law Association in collaboration with Enterprise Estonia, ArcticStartup is cooperating to organize an Elevator Pitch Business Plan Contest with support from Connect Estonia. The contest is held in Tallinn, Estonia on May 26, 2009.
Prizes:
- One full day of law consulting with Fish & Richardson P.C., Silicon Valley, worth $6000. The prize can be used as the winner wishes, e.g., to incorporate a subsidiary to establish operations in Silicon Valley. The consultation can be done in person or by Skype or Polycom video. Consultation with the Munich office of Fish & Richardson P.C. may also be included, subject to availability and requirements of the contest winner.
- One full day of law consulting with Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP, worth $3000, to be used as the winner wishes. The consultation can be done in person (location negotiable) or by Skype or Polycom video.
The jury:
- Martin Hauge, Managing Director, Creandum, Stockholm
- Allan Martinson, Managing Director, MTVP, Tallinn
- Artturi Tarjanne, Managing Director, Nexit Ventures, Helsinki
- Rick Marshall, Managing Director, Intelligent Capital, San Francisco
- Sten Tamkivi , Chief Evangelist, Skype, Tallinn
- Ott Parna, Managing Director, Estonian Development Fund, Tallinn
- Richard Allan Horning, Principal, Fish & Richardson P.C., Silicon Valley
Growth-oriented technology startups from all Nordic and Baltic countries are welcomed to apply. Five firms will be selected to present a 5-minute pitch at the event. The judging criteria include the expected success of the firm, growth potential, differentiation and competitive advantage, risk and financial viability, and the management team.
Please note the contest rules and other information in the Invitation. Any questions about the contest can be sent to miikka(at)arcticstartup(dot)com.
The applications must be based using this form.
Please send your application to events(at)arcticstartup(dot)com latest by May 13th 6:00 PM EET. Finalists will be announced on May 14th.
Coaching and training for preparing the pitches are available to all chosen finalists prior to the contest, provided by Connect Estonia and members of the International Technology Law Association Luiga Mody Hääl Borenius and Raidla Lejins & Norcous, either online, in Tallinn, or in the participants' home country, depending on possibilities.
Red Herring 100 Europe Finalists
This year's Red Herring 100 finalists from Europe were announced last week. The competition is held annually to find Europe's most promising tech companies. This year the list is nicely populated by companies from the Arctic area. More than 40 of the finalists this year come from the geographic area we cover - nicely done! Sweden, Norway and Finland are most represented and after that come Denmark and Estonia. Latvia and Lithuania still shine with their absence.
Plugg2009 Annouces Finalists for the Startup Pitching Competition
Plugg, the European one-day conference on celebrating of entrepreneurship and innovation announced today the 20 final nominees for the Startup Rally. Finalists also include three arctic startups: Burt and Senseboard from Sweden and Hammerkit from Finland. Plugg is taking place on March 12 in Brussels. If you're interested to see the most promising European web and mobile startups, TechCrunch is offering a 15% discount.
HammerKit(from the ArcticIndex): is a web application service platform that has been developed to make it easier and faster to build dynamic, data-driven web sites. The platform allows an entire web site or application to be designed, assembled, deployed and managed online from reusable components in minutes.
Burt helps marketing agencies to perform better in the new read-write web. They want take advertising and analytics past the cost-per-click methods and banners. Current product offering includes: Copybox - "a Photoshop for copywriters", basically a smart text editor, Mememachine - cloudcomputing for marketing data, and Rich - an analytics tool for campaigns.
Senseboard develops cool wearable technology on for hand gesture based computer interaction. Two hand bands or glovers enable a method for capturing, analyzing and interpreting hand and finger movements.
Total of 133 European companies registered to the competition and 20 were selected from these. ArcticStartup congratulates all the chosen startups and wishes extra luck for the arctic startups!
Innovate!Europe To Identify Europe's Most Promising Startups
Now that everybody's talking how the economy is predicted to go into a ever steeper tailspin, we wanted to (yes, again) offer a real opportunity to those statups who believe they can rise up to the challenge.
For this we have partnered with Guidewire Group’s Innovate! Europe, a three-part program designed to identify Europe’s most promising startups and accelerate their drive into the global technology market. During this European “talent search,” entrepreneurs will receive invaluable mentoring and promotion while competing against other aspiring startups.
How to know you qualify:
- You are ready to expand out of your home market, to go global.
- You are in the information technology, Internet, mobile and digital media sectors.
Hundreds of companies will apply. Only one will be named the top startup in all of Europe.
The first step is to apply online for an invitation to participate one of Innovate!Europe’s complimentary Going Global Workshops. The most promising companies are invited to local Going Global Workshops, where Guidewire Group’s expert analyst team will give you feedback on your company’s competitive value proposition and market opportunity, and help you hone your pitch and the skills you need to best compete in fast-paced markets like Silicon Valley.
Upcoming Going Global workshops:
30 March: Bern, Switzerland
3 April: Berlin, Germany
6 April: Paris, France
Application and attendance at the Going Global workshops are free, so apply now for the competition and to participant in a Going Global Workshop.
The most promising companies who participate in Going Global Workshops will receive free online promotion and exclusive invitations to the next phase of the program: Innovate! Europe's Master Class, where you will prepare to go global. During the intensive course, taking place May 4-6 in Zaragoza, Spain, you will learn the governance, marketing, fundraising, partnering and business development skills critical to thriving in Silicon Valley. Taught by serial entrepreneurs, financiers and experts from Europe and the United States, the Master Class curriculum will highlight proven strategies and best practices that are integral to becoming a successful global entrepreneur.
The top graduates of Innovate!Europe’s Master Class will have an opportunity to put their newfound knowledge to use and accelerate their business in Silicon Valley as participants of the Innovate! Europe Trade Mission the week of June 9th.
Innovate!Europe will culminate with the selection of one European startup that shows the greatest potential to shine on the global stage. That company, which will be selected by the Innovate!Europe’s Master Class faculty, will win an exclusive spot at Guidewire STUDIO, an in-residence business accelerator in the heart of Silicon Valley. Executives from the winning startup will have the opportunity to benefit from knowledgeable mentors, to reach new investors and to form strategic partnerships to help grow their business.
This 90-day STUDIO engagement typically costs $30,000, plus equity. To the winner of the Innovate!Europe search for the top European startup, the STUDIO is absolutely free. Learn more at http://www.innovate-events.com.
Plugg Startup Rally 2009 Deadline Closing
Plugg, the one day conference organised in Brussels, will be closing its Startup Rally 2009 submissions on February 4th. Plugg is taking place on the 13th of March and this year will showcase an interesting line-up of speakers from around the globe, including the former CEO and current chairman of the board of Dopplr Lisa Sounio.
Plugg is organised by Robin Wauters, a Techcrunch writer, who has this to say about the startup competition, "we want to give those European startups with the most potential a chance to raise their profile in front of the world, which in our case means hundreds of professional web practicioners, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and trade press / bloggers." 20 most prominent startups from Europe will have a chance to give a 2-minute pitch to the audience at the conference. Registering is free and all you have to do is fit the criteria provided. Read more about registering on this minisite.
ArcticStartup Partners With Grand One
ArcticStartup has partnered with Grand One, a competition for the Finnish new media scene to shine and glamour with their year's work. We are the chairman of the newly founded category: best startup (Finnish only, sorry).
If you're a Finnish startup, do take part. We managed to negotiate the participation price down to 50€ per company, instead of the 100€ for the other categories. You're asked to create a application page on the web with the necessary details; description of your product or service, the business model you are going after for the money as well as information on the userbase and how you see the market. The finalists will be announced by 6th of March and the winner will be presented in the gala in Apollo Restaurant on the 16th of March.
Finnish startups - submit your work!
Slush Startup-Competition: One More Week To Submit Your Idea
Slush, an event for startups by startups in Helsinki, Finland, is this month (24th November) and deadline to submit your idea for a startup is closing in. You will have until 7th 14th November which is this next Friday, so better hurry up if you don't have submitted your 'next big thing' yet.
You can read more about the competition and submit your idea here.
If you think you have a great idea and you are brave enough to test your idea, the Slush team (which I'm part of) might be able to help to get you started. We aim to choose up to seven teams with potential ideas for a successful startup and give them little seed money to work on their project on summer 2009. We hope that we can give 6 000 euro to each team and possibly fund up to seven teams.
At the end of the day the number of teams we can fund depends on how succesful the event will turn out to be. We are not looking into making any profit from the event and all the organizers work for free to make the Slush event happen. We will channel all the remaining money after expenses have been covered to the Slush Fund to fund these startup projects. In essence, the amount of money we can give out depends on the number of people that will buy the ticket and show up, so make sure you'll be there!
So who's coming to Slush? The whole Finnish startup scene, TechCrunch UK, VentureBeat, many of our friends from TheNextWeb if they possible can. Best wishes to Partrick at Amsterdam. We all hope he gets well soon.
JoikuSpot receives Forum Nokia Innovation recognition
The Finnish mobile software company JoikuSpot has received recognition in the 2008 Forum Nokia Innovation series program. The sotftware morphs your phone into a WiFi-router so everyone around you can share your mobile internet connection. Six of the winners were from the US, while Joikuspot and the Italian based UbiSafe defended the European pride in the competition. JoikuSpot also recently won the main prize in APAC Navteq Global LBS challenge.
The winners have gone through a tought selection process with focus groups held around the globe and a tight internal review by Nokia. Nokia also states that they are proud to be helping put these in front of business users and consumers, while not completely stating what this means in practice. Hopefully there will be more promotion for these winners other than a place in the Nokia Software Market.
Startup Launchpad @ Mindtrek, Tampere
Mindtrek 2008, the conference that started off as a multimedia competition a decade ago, is once again gathering in Tampere between 7th and 9th of October. Mindtrek will also be featuring a Startup Launchpad, where a maximum of seven startups will be chosen to present to the audience and a group of judges.
The selection criteria and application procedure can be seen on the Mindtrek Startup Launchpad website. Although it is still unofficial, ArcticStartup, will also be present at the conference one way or another. We've also heard that the prizes will be pretty good, so think seriously about joining.
More on the conference in the future as things progress.
Kuneri wins EMEA Regional Award in Forum Nokia 2008 Code Camp Competition
Kuneri, Oulu based company founded in 2006, has won EMEA Regional Award in the Forum Nokia 2008 Code Camp Competition with their Easy Vote application. The contest was aimed at inspiring building Web Runtime (WRT) widgets and Flash applications.
The winner Easy Vote is a mobile Flash Lite application enabling users to vote by mobile phone call, text message, or Web service via rich user interface. Kuneri focuses on creating applications and tools for Flash Lite development mainly on the Symbian S60 platform. The firm also offers KuneriLite, an application development toolkit for Symbian/S60 stated to extend Flash Lite capabilities and allow creating applications without any Symbian knowledge.
