Mikko Hyppönen Of F-Secure On Startups In Online Security
We had a brief chat with Mikko Hyppönen, the Chief Research Officer of F-Secure, the Finland based online security company. As he's one of the most vocal representatives of F-Secure online, we wanted to ask him how he feels about the startup potential in online security space. While there are a few really good and interesting companies around, he mentioned that overall there are surprisingly few companies working with online security.
You can follow him on twitter @mikkohypponen or through the F-Secure weblog.
Vendep Expands To US And Announces First Investment
Vendep has announced their first investment in US today. It is into a California based company, v-Pitch. v-Pitch helps companies digitize their sales efforts and in doing so, adds analytics to better qualify leads for businesses. Vendep on the other hand is a Finnish investor that instead of investing capital, invests technological resources into companies. Vendep employs 13 people in Finland and 140 in India.
Siilasmaa: Direct Finnish Gov't Investments To Startups Should Be Stopped
Risto Siilasmaa, the F-Secure Chairman and Founder, one of the most well known private investors in Finland, has stated in a recent event that direct Finnish government investments to startups should be stopped. By this he means that the way they are currently done, should be stopped and we should leverage the wisdom in the market to make smarter investment decisions. His basic statement was that Finland has created the Vigo accelerator program which is full of serial entrepreneurs and the government investment funds should beinvested through these entities. He states that Finland should look towards Singapore and Israel, where the government leverages all private investments with certain restrictions.
Mindtrek Offering 20k€ In Prize Money (Again)
Mindtrek, being one of the most interesting internet oriented conferences in Finland, is again this year offering a lot of prize money for the winner of the Launchpad competition as well as for the runners up. Mindtrek is organised in Tampere, Finland between the 6th and 8th of October. The event has attracted more and more startups each year as it has began to profile itself as a good doer with huge sums of prize money. Last year Multitouch, a maker of modular touch screens, took home the prize money.
Mindtrek's Launchpad competition has attracted a lot of good talent this year as well. Furthermore, Mindtrek has extended the deadline for the applications until 3rd of September. According to Mindtrek's website; The MindTrek LaunchPad competition awards innovative new Finnish digital media products or demos – and the people behind it, who have the urge to make it big. If you feel like applying, do so here before September 3rd.
ErAce Security Blocks SMS Vulnerability With New Firewall Product
erAce Security Solutions has launched a mobile firewall for preventing SMS attacks on smartphones that could result in an attacker hijacking mobile data connections. The product is called Settings Firewall and it is targeted Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems (more info, PDF).
There has been a lot of discussion on possible SMS vulnerabilities lately. For example, F-Secure has reported the first ever SMS worm, and just end of 2008 there were headlines about the Curse of Silence denial of service attack. It is often deemed as just a matter of time before the first more serious threats appear.
Slush Helsinki
There has been much talk around Slush lately. Yet, it has not yet been very clear at all what is happening and I'm partly to blame. Now I try to shed some light onto the issue and at the same time invite you all to Slush.
In a nutshell Slush is a new Helsinki originated event for startups by startups. The whole process started when I along with a few others passionate about the subject were trying to brainstorm on how to give a boost to the Finnish startup scene, home and abroad. We had an idea that a bigger annual event might be the answer for the lack of visibility among Finnish startups in the global arena. If nothing else, we saw that such an event was missing from the Finnish startup fabric.
After throwing ideas back and forth for while I, Peter Vesterbacka (of Mobile Monday fame) and Kai Lemmetty (of Floobs) came up with an event that would show the best Finland has to offer, once a year every year. Later on Helene Auramo from Zipipop jumped along to bring her positive energy to the team and give it an even stronger startup perspective. Peter came up with the name Slush and so it started.
Finnish summer can be an amazing experience with its nightless nights, but there's also the dark winter we
live with the other six months. Thus, any startup born in Finland have equal number of slushy and dark Novembers in their DNA as they have those warm sunny Julys. Many say the one quality a startup needs above all is perseverance against adversity and out of all the languages Finnish is the one that has its own word for describing just that. The word is Sisu and I believe that it has much to do with Finns pushing through those dark slushy winter months. Thus, an apt name especially for a startup event. Having said that, I believe this is the case with startup DNA all over the Nordic and Baltic countries.
After finding the right people to take on the challenge we were ready to start working. What we really aim to do is light up the startup scene, namely by showing students what entrepreneurship can be at its best, and show the international crowd that there is much more to Finnish startups than the tip of the iceberg they've seen so far. Naturally big part of the whole event is to enable the Finnish entrepreneurs meet not only each other but also investors and other businesses from home and abroad.
We know there's a plethora of events that are not working as well as they could for the entrepreneurs themselves, and thus we decided that everything we do should be done in the interest of the startup scene in mind. If something is in conflict with that focus, it will be scrapped from the agenda. For startups by startups or nothing.
Now we are at a point where the website is up and running so we can tell people about the event, invite them along and spread the word. Even the fact that the website leaked out half ready turned out to be only beneficial, since many people wanted to help out. For example the nice guys at Valve volunteered to help out right away. I've also heard that the Bolder guys are ready to do their part and Scred has promised to make the actual platform for selling tickets for the event.
The event itself will take place 24th November at Korjaamo Culture Factory in Helsinki and run through the whole day. The program will be a combination of four parts:
- Success Stories - This is were we have the Finland's finest web entrepreneurs lined up. Risto Siilasmaa from F-Secure, Petteri Koponen from First Hop/Jaiku, Ilkka Paananen from Sumea/Digital Chocolate, Asmo Halinen from Apaja only to name a few of the entrepreneurs that have started small and made it big.
- Technology track - This is modeled on the Startup Developer Gathering (SDG), which was put together by Kai Lemmetty. For Slush Kai is putting together a tech presentation bar none. This track will go on all day and have many Finnish heavy weights like Teemu Kurppa (Jaiku/Google) presenting their insight for the Slush attendees.
- Thirdly, a showcase where up to 40 local startups can show what they have, be it products, services, their team, philosophy behind the concept and what not.
- Fourthly, probably the most important reason pulling the event together in the first place, we have seven pre-screened teams presenting their business ideas to the audience. These teams will be funded by the Slush Fund. The Slush Fund will be in effect just as big as the combined sponsorship revenue plus the proceeds from the sold tickets will allow it to be. In another words we will channel all the money from the event (minus cost e.g. rent for the venue etc.) to the seven teams. If you are a student with an idea for the next big thing you should apply. Instead of writing code and making coffee at one of the big corporations next summer, you could spend the summer of 2009 working on your own idea and have the expertise of most of the Finnish startup community to draw from.
In a nutshell this is Slush Helsinki. An event for startups by startups.
If the website seems that it does not give out all the details yet, it is by no means because we want to keep you in the dark but rather because we are working on the agenda as we go along to make it as good as resources and time allow. ArcticStartup will be naturally reporting what is happening at the event itself but also how the event is developing from now until the day itself in late November. Welcome to the Slush everybody!
Edit: There was a mistake saying October instead of November. The correct date for Slush is NOVEMBER 24th.
Siilasmaa invests in Whatamap.com
Risto Siilasmaa (of F-Secure fame) has invested in Whatamap.com, a mobile map service, (more on Whatamap.com here) and is thus also bringing much needed experience to the company on how to build and scale a startup into a successful global player.
The parties did not disclose the specific sum invested but according to Whatamap.com the investment was 'markable'.
