Unfair Advantage - 004 - They Have To Suffer For Another Ten Years
The fourth episode of Unfair Advantage takes us to Denmark as we chat with Klaus Nyengaard, the Group CEO of Just Eat. Just Eat is originally from Denmark, where it was set up more than 10 years ago. In the last five or six years, the company has seen a huge growth in internationalisation and now operates in 15 countries. Their currently run forecasts that they will deliver somewhere around $750 million worth of food this year. Klaus Nyengaard gave us a very detailed view on their internationalisation strategy both from setting up shop yourself and acquiring existing players in the market to grow.
Statistics On Scandinavian Music Streamers
A market survey conducted by Norstat for the WiMP music streaming service shows that roughly 3 out of 10 Norwegians and Swedes have listened to music by streaming in the week before the questioning took place. The survey was collected in January of 2012. In Norway, this proportion increased 20 to 29 percent from June of the past year, while Sweden saw a jump of 27 to 29 percent, showing the early saturation of the market. Danish users are behind the times, with a jump from 14 to a current 20%. This low penetration can likely be explained by Spotify only launching in Denmark in October.
Graduateland Hits User Number 65000, Is Largest European Student Career Portal
As winners of the popular vote at the Arctic15, we provided some free advertisement vouchers to Graduateland as a reward. In the coming months you'll find we'll cover a variety of topics on Graduateland's service.
It seems strange to introduce the winner of a popular vote, but for those of you unfamiliar with Graduateland, they're a career portal for European students and recent graduates that facilitates the connections between students, universities, and employers. Graduateland is designed for employers to find ideal candidates, but the service is also built from an advanced crawler engine that synchronizes with large employers' career websites. Around mid November, Graduateland welcomed user number 65 000, which has made them the largest career portal for students in Europe.
Saying Something Over And Over Again Doesn't Make It So
Om Malik, the founder of GigaOm was speaking in Helsinki to a room of media representatives yesterday morning at the Aalto Venture Garage. His visit to Finland is part of a tour to come understand the companies and environment the local startups work in. Before Helsinki, he had visited Berlin and the LeWeb conference in Paris. I managed to talk to Malik about the way he sees these entrepreneurial hubs.
The big part of our discussion circled around the fact that people in Europe always look up to Silicon Valley and how they succeed in everything they do, while failing to see all the potential in front of their eyes. I have to say, while I knowledge the value Silicon Valley has on companies - I wonder how much possibility is wasted when following a given path without truly thinking of the possibilities closer to you. After all, Rovio didn't go to Silicon Valley to succeed - it all started with an innocent tweet by a Swedish athlete in the Nordics (going international I mean).
A Breakdown Of The Daily Deals Market in Denmark
Continuing from our previous coverage of the daily deals market in the Baltics, we're taking a look at the Danish market with information and analysis provided to us by Bownty, the leading daily deals aggregator in Denmark. The company provides a service similar to what Kayak does for air travel; they collect and put together the daily deals for more than 600 cities around the globe, to the point where at any given time more than 4500 deals are available on the service.
Bownty is in a nice postion to give some analysis about the market because as an aggregator, they have little conflict of interest in exaggerating the data. We talked with CEO and Co-founder Steffen Frølund and gained access to data from the several hundred-thousand deals that have been run through their platform.
The Zendesk Story, A Moment With Mikkel Svane
I managed to grab 20 minutes of Mikkel Svane's time in LeWeb to interview him on the evolution of Zendesk and some of the thinking they had behind building a world class company in just a few years. Zendesk isn't just your usual startup, if there really even is one. Zendesk very early decided to move its headquarters to the States after raising their second round in 2008. The company focuses in providing the very best help desk solutions online, which only aren't extremely easy to use and integrate, but also beautiful.
SCALEit Accelerator Program Will Take 10 Danish Startups To The Valley
SCALEit is a new startup accelerator program aimed towards entrepreneurs in Denmark. The program is looking for 10 of the most promising Danish tech startups to take to Silicon Valley for an all-inclusive 12-week crusade that will help the companies set up a US presence, create strategies for the US market, become investor ready and ultimately compete on a global level.
During the three-month program, SCALEit will provide the selected startups with everything from knowhow and guidance to mentors, office facilities, transportation, events, workshops and investor meetings. Unlike most accelerators, SCALEit will not ask for equity from the participating companies but taking part in the program does cost 100,000 DKK per startup.
Unity's Growth Continues: 750,000 Registered Developers
Copenhagen originated Unity Technologies announced on Tuesday that its development platform for games and interactive 3D has surpassed 750,000 registered developers. This marks a 50% increase in developers in just four months and it appears that Unity is bringing the year to a close with continued record growth.
After receiving a $12 million Series B investment from Asian venture capitalists in July, CEO David Helgason predicted that 40% of Unity’s business will come from China within the next 18 months. No details were released on where the current growth is coming from, but the figures are definitely impressive. Over the course of the past year, the number of registered developers has tripled from 250,000 to 750,000 (26% active monthly) and Unity Web Player installations have doubled from 40 million to 80 million.
CanvasDropr: Share And Collaborate On A Rich Media Canvas
CanvasDropr is a new collaborative media-sharing platform from Denmark. Instead of emailing or uploading your images and videos to different social media platforms, you can drag them onto a fully editable blank canvas and let your family, friends and colleagues join in on the fun.
BrowserTexting Seeing Worldwide Growth After Going Freemium
You might remember our coverage of BrowserTexing last August. BrowserTexing is the Danish Android app that allows you to text from your phone number in your computer's browser. This makes it an valuable service for people who send a lot of text messages, group sms messages, and people who would rather type on their keyboard while leaving their phone in their pocket.
Nordic iPhone App Store Statistics
Lacking a better metrics from official sources, the data analysts at Xyologic have put together statistics on the top paid and free apps in the Android, iPhone, iPad, and WP7 marketplace. These numbers can't be relied upon completely, but should prove themselves to be fairly sound when discussing what's happening at the top of the marketplaces.
Our first coverage of these data-sets will look at what's happening in the paid and free iPhone marketplaces in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, using data from the month of August. Games accounted for about 59% of paid app downloads in the region, with anywhere from 57.1% in Finland to 61.3% in Sweden. This is quite apparent when looking at the top paid app lists, with the following four games consistently in the top 5:
Issuu Releases AdPages, Transforms Documents Into Online Ads
‘The future of print is digital’, we think the phrase has become obvious and clichéd but Issuu’s vision has become a striking reality. Today the Danish startup allowed its users to transform their print documents into ads with AdPages.
The AdPages service brings a concept similar to promoted tweets on Twitter just that it brings the same to documents across its platform. Users can promote their documents in special promotion slots on other related documents’ pages. Advertisers can set daily spending for ads and are only charged whenever a visitor clicks on the ad slot on the site. Meaning you don’t pay for impressions but clicks, which ensures users visit your product (a document in this case).
Gignal Amplifies Events By Presenting Social Media Buzz In One Place
If you've ever been to a conference you know how important the buzz around it is. You need to follow tweets to check what people around you are thinking or view check-ins to see who's actually attending. The same applies to a lot of events, be it concerts or sports events. The problem is, though, that there is a growing number of ways to interact with others around an event but no single platform that would combine all of that rich content. Gignal has an answer for that. Founded in Denmark by Natasha Friis Saxberg, the start-up offers a social media billboard for events that presents all social buzz around the happening in one place (check-ins, tweets, comments, pictures and videos).
BBC's Global iPlayer iPad App Now Available In Finland, Sweden and Denmark
BBC’s Global iPlayer iPad app, originally launched in July in 11 European countries, is now available in Finland, Sweden and Denmark. For 6.99 €/month or an optional annual subscription of 64.99 €, users will get access to BBC’s extensive archives from the last 70 years of broadcasting.
Spotify Expands To Denmark
Spotify has just announced its expansion to Denmark. It's probably been one of the countries with a lot of anticipation for the Swedish company to announce its expansion there. While Denmark isn't a huge market place, it's definitely a step Spotify needed to take - it needs to work in all markets to make it a consumer favorite.
Three Events To Watch: StartupGarage + Goto Conf + Slush
Every now and then we highlight a few good events people should attend to make the most of their networking, business opportunities or learning new things. There are three good conferences we believe people should watch in the coming month or so. They are Goto Conference organised in Aarhus, Denmark, Slush organised in Helsinki, Finland and StartupGarage -event organised in Tallinn, Estonia. All slightly different, but surely worth your time to check them out if they're of interest to you. Below's a short break down of each event.
Endomondo Raises $2.3M And Reaches 5M Downloads
Endomondo, the company developing a mobile sports tracker application by the same name, has announced its $2.3 million financing round from Denmark based SEED Capital. Endomondo was launched in September 2008. The company's mobile app has gained substantial traction since February, when we reported it reached a previous significant milestone of 2 million downloads.
Just-Eat Expands To South America
Just-Eat, a Danish originated, world's largest online takeaway ordering service has expanded to South America through a partnership with RestauranteWeb. The partnership in practice means that Restaurante Web will become part of the Just-Eat Group. The partnership will give Just-Eat a pool of over 1000 restaurants in Brazil initially.
RestauranteWeb was founded in 2004 by Luiz Jares and Marco Corradini. Jares commented “We’ve always known the huge potential online takeaway has in Brazil, and as the leading provider of food ordering services we are in a prime position to capitalise. Being part of the Just-Eat Group means that we will be able to offer both existing and new restaurant partners an enhanced service that will allow them to serve more customers than ever before.”
Mancx, Graduateland Win At Arctic15
Close to 400 startup enthusiasts from all over the region came together in Helsinki to witness 15 stellar pitches from companies on stage at Arctic15 yesterday. The day was all about winning and despite the hard choice of the jury to pick one winner - all the companies already won, by getting tons of coverage and visibility on stage for their products and services. In addition to this, Amazon Web Services decided to give a substantial amount of credit to all the 15 finalists (we'll contact you directly regarding the details on this).
Here They Are: Arctic15 Finalists
It's been a tough run up to the Arctic15 conference for startups competing for the chance to pitch on stage. The finalists have now been chosen by the secret jury and they are listed below. Close to 100 companies applied to the competition by the end of July and over the course of August 33 companies made the so called semi-finals and from those, 15 companies came out on top as finalists. The 15 finalists were chosen from video pitches the companies made. This is for two reasons. First, we wanted the companies to have good products and secondly, they would also have to be good in selling and explaining those products.
Zendesk Gives Back To The Community
We often hear that once you succeed in something or achieve a goal, it's important to give back to the community that helped you get there. But how can you do that in practice? Zendesk, a start-up from Denmark that provides cloud-based help desk software, found their answer: they are opening a new development center in Denmark and are offering a year-long free subscription to their service for start-ups affiliated with certain incubators like Seedcamp, Startupbootcamp, HackFwd, TechStars, Startup Weekend and more. As Mikkel Svane, CEO, commented: 'Having been a small startup ourselves in Denmark, we recognize and are thankful for everyone who helped us along the way'.
Podcast: Interview With Klaus Nyengaard Of Just-Eat
I had the privilege of interviewing Klaus Nyengaard, the group CEO of Just-Eat, a Danish originated company that currently employs over 400 people with revenues in the tens of millions of euros. First I was supposed to interview Nyengaard for an article on ArcticStartup, but the discussion flowed quite nicely so I decided to make it into a podcast. We touched on quite a few items of Just-Eat's business, including how they see expansion as well as plans for an IPO. We covered Just-Eat just last week and I have to say - very, very few people have reacted which such pace as Nyengaard did (not to mention he's the group CEO) to get back to me on the article.
BrowserTexting Enables SMS Sending From Your Browser
BrowserTexting is a new startup from Denmark, which enables in a similarly named online service, users to send and receive SMS's from their browser. All you need at this moment is an Android phone to take advantage of the service. The company states that there are no limits on how many messages you can send and also, to how many people - which unfortunately might make it appealing for spammers. Nevertheless, it has interesting features such as the possibility to send group SMS's.
Just Eat Just Keeps On Growing
Just Eat is a Copenhagen based online service founded in 2000 that has created an online portal for food delivery. The company recently received another feather to its hat as GigaOM wrote about the company belonging to one of the 5 super star companies out from Europe (for record, other companies in that category were Rovio, Spotify, Vente Privée and Wonga, Northern Europe ftw!). Just Eat is now live in 14 countries and has 15 000 restaurants in its system. It's the world leader in online takeaway ordering.
Unity Technologies Closes $12M In Financing - Eyes Asia
Unity Technologies, a Copenhagen originated startup now based in Silicon Valley, has closed a $12 million in financing from WestSummit Capital in China and iGlobe Partners in Singapore, according to Techcrunch. The financing round is Unity's second and an investor from the first round, Sequoia Capital, also participated in the round.
Startup Crib: Endomondo
Startup Crib is a series of posts dedicated to start-ups' offices. The visual tour around a start-up’s office gives readers a real-life picture of how and where entrepreneurs work and gives a chance to meet the team behind the company. Different offices have their own perks and peculiarities so sit back and enjoy!
This time the company in focus of Startup Cribs is Endomondo, a Copenhagen-based start-up that is developing a sports-tracking application. The app tracks your work-outs in real-time, helps you set up and achieve sports goals, see sports activities of your friends and set up and track competitions. Launched in 2009, Endomondo's app has now received more than 3 million downloads. You can meet their team and see their office in the video below.
Tradeshift Now In Finnish And Dutch
About a month after closing a $7M funding round, Tradeshift is doing better and better. Their platform is now available in Finnish and Dutch languages to attract even more local businesses use the network. 'Of all the European markets we are in, the Netherlands and Finland are among the most mature when it comes to online invoicing', comments Christian Lanng, CEO. 'The adoption of e-invoicing has been driven [there] by the Governments which has resulted in highly competitive e-invoicing markets'. Turns out that even before Tradeshift was translated into Finnish and Dutch, their free e-invoicing model was already being used by businesses of all sizes as an alternative to traditional online invoicing providers.
Win In Copenhagen And Get Tickets To Arctic15
Startup weekend is organising a mobile oriented event this weekend in Copenhagen. It's already been of immense popularity, but we thought we'd show some support to the event in the form of offering free tickets to Arctic15 conference for the winning team. So, if you'd like to have a chance at winning the event, but also winning Arctic15 conference tickets for the whole team - participate now.
Tangerine District Is Looking To Be "The" Community For Small Businesses
Tangerine District is a Denmark based company that has created an online community with a lot of different tools available for small businesses. It combines the traditional productivity tools such as a CRM and a calendar together with file sharing and a knowledge base where you can ask questions from fellow entrepreneurs. Furthermore, there are services provided by other third party members, such as lawyers, etc. to help the small businesses onward in their path.
Interested To Work At A Startup? Join One At CopenhagenStartups
There is nothing like being an entrepreneur. Of course that’s a bit challenging for many - especially to let go off the comfort of a monthly paycheck, but many aspire to be one. The problem is not everyone is bound to be one and even less are bound to be successful. However, there are many people searching for jobs each spring as they leave their schools behind, be it high school or university. CopenhagenStartups is a new initiative to help people find a job at a startup, something not many might have thought to be a viable start for a career path.
