Growth Companies Largest Employers In The Finnish Economy
Kauppalehti reports on some fascinating results from research conducted by Balance Consulting on the effects of growth companies in the Finnish economy. While I realise this data is very Finland centric and might not be of that much interest to others - I am sure these results will resonate in similar manner in other countries. We wrote about this in 2008 as well and it seems that the data, some one and a half years later is still very valid. The study was conducted by looking at companies whose revenue is above 1,7 million euros annually and belong to the Balance Consulting corporate databse. While the database is very thorough, it does leave a lot of the younger startups out.
Finland Puts €45 Million Into High Growth Incubation Fund
Finland's Minister of employment and the economy, Mauri Pekkarinen, has announced last week that Finland will be adding more capability to commercialise innovations with a €45 million fund. The fund is put together from governmental organisations such as Tekes and Finnvera's seed financier Vera.
The aim of the new fund is to attract more international talent from overseas to help the companies grow and also enable more targeted investments. One of the ways international talent is attracted is the financial upside. The goverment is willing to invest into these companies, if a private sector individual (person or organisation) invests. Thus the financial upside is the invested amount in the company.
Disruptive.nu - Promoting Swedish Entrepreneurship
I had a chat on Skype today with Christian and Peter from Disruptive.nu about differences and similarities in the startup industry between Finland and Sweden. After a long chat, which I will post online later, we had to conclude that there aren't that many differences in the end - although Finland is admittedly slightly behind by a year or two.
I argued that there are two major weaknesses with the Finnish startup industry; the lack of second (and third) generation entrepreneurs with experience as well as a bridge to fill the gap between the public finance vehicles and venture money. The first part I find to be grown through successful attributes in society in general for startups. The entrepreneurs must have a reason to build a successful company in Finland again and not flee overseas with their exit money (something that you can't really argue against considering the current state of affairs). The second point is slightly more difficult, however even more important I believe. We need to limit the availability of public finance to a certain amount, something I don't know yet, to stop supporting unhealthy companies that fail to create their business on market demand.
Christian and Peter stated that the biggest problem in Sweden at the moment is finding talent and money to build succesful startups. I'd believe, though not undermining the shortcomings, these are somewhat universal problems in the startup industry. Talent is something that can be usually found more of in terms of poor macro economic perfomance as companies lay off talented people in hopes of saving a penny here and there. Yet another reason why starting a company in times recession is a good idea. Which brings me to another important point raised in the discussion - we all agreed that times of recession have less of an effect on startups as they're short on resources no matter what the economic climate is.
I'll be doing some editing on the video interview and releasing it in the near future. If you'd like to do a video interview with us, don't hesitate to contact me at antti (at) arcticstartup.com and we'll see what we can do.
Photo by flo_p
Michael Arrington On What Works In The Current Economic Climate
I acknowledge that our postings have a been a bit video heavy lately and continue to be so this week, but still wanted to give you a few, what I think is very useful, soundbites from Michael Arrington, editor and founder of TechCrunch. Despite the on-going general post-LeWeb brouhaha in the web, this is worth a watch. Andrea Vascellari, CEO of iTive.net consultancy did a good job asking Arrington where he sees the startups given the current economic climate.
Here's the key take aways from the video:
- In a tough economic climate winners find an aggressive way to expand without spending a lof of money by
- Reducing head count
- Paying lower salaries now that they are collectively down
- Paying less for everything = lower expenses overall
- Acquiring competitors pennies for dollar when they are about to belly up
- A lot of startups make headcount adjustments already, which is probably a smart move (Think Fruugo and Blyk)
- Those startups that have better execution end up being winners (this is something that I believe always bares repeating even though it's a no-brainer)
- Remember that this downturn is different! Those who act as they acted in the previous one probably end up being one of the losers.
- You have to be quick on your feet and agile
- Those who focus on technical market analysis on what used to work tend to too poorly in the new climate: You should look at the playing field as a new one and compete given that
Nokia Cuts Jobs. A Sign Of Times To Come?
Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone giant, has announced the shedding of 600 jobs.
The following sectors will get hit: Approximately 450 employees, maximum 100 in Finland, in the Markets unit will be affected, 130 Nokia Research Center employees globally, of which again a maximum of 100 are in Finland. Some smaller workforce adjustments are also in the plans in the global process operations. The adjustments in process operations are estimated to affect approximately 35 employees, of which almost all are in Finland.
In addition to the job cuts, Nokia plans to close its Turku site (Finland) and relocate those activities predominantly to Salo (Finland).
The changes in the Markets unit, Nokia Research Center and in other Nokia functions will come into effect on January 1, 2009. The closing of the Turku site is estimated to be completed by the end of January, 2009.
A New Writer Joins ArcticStartup
I am happy to announce that Karri Saarinen, an entrepreneur, web developer and an economics graduate student joins our ranks at ArcticStartup.
Karri will bring his strong technological understanding to our editorial team. This will enable us to dive even deeper into the technological innovations that the startups we follow bring into the market.
I believe that despite the hardship that the economy's downturn brings with it, it is also a healthy correction for the web 2.0 startup industry, even though this time our industry was not responsible for it like in the 2000s. Thus, I am sure that we will see healthier and more focused startups in the future and that is why we want to make sure ArcticStartup is better equipped than ever to write about the new startups. For this reason, Karri will be a a perfect addition to ArcticStartup team and give us the needed resources to bring you the news on the latest new startups across the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Welcome Karri!
