Posts tagged:

competition

Multitouch Wins The MindTrek Launchpad

by Ville Vesterinen, October 2, 2009 — 2 Comments

multitouch.fiThe 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.

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Reminder: Elevator Pitch Contest for Nordic & Baltic Firms

by Miikka Kukkosuo, May 5, 2009 — Leave a Comment

ITech Law Conference TalllinnThis 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

by Miikka Kukkosuo, April 23, 2009 — Leave a Comment

Money

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

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Red Herring 100 Europe Finalists

by Antti Vilpponen, March 30, 2009 — Leave a Comment

Red Herring 100 FinalistsThis 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.
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Plugg2009 Annouces Finalists for the Startup Pitching Competition

by Karri Saarinen, March 2, 2009 — 1 Comment

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.

hammerkitHammerKit(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-logo-hi_resBurt 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.

senseboardSenseboard 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!

Click in to see the full list.

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Innovate!Europe To Identify Europe’s Most Promising Startups

by Ville Vesterinen, February 11, 2009 — Leave a Comment

innovateeuropeNow 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

by Antti Vilpponen, February 2, 2009 — 2 Comments

Plugg.eu conferencePlugg, 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

by Antti Vilpponen, January 20, 2009 — Leave a Comment

Grand One 2009
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

by Ville Vesterinen, November 5, 2008 — 3 Comments

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

by Antti Vilpponen, August 13, 2008 — 2 Comments

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

by Antti Vilpponen, August 12, 2008 — 1 Comment

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

by Miikka Kukkosuo, June 3, 2008 — Leave a Comment

KuneriKuneri, 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.

Kuneri’s blog post.