TrueCaller Reaches 50M Monthly Lookups
TrueCaller is a Swedish startup that tries to eliminate the existence of unknown or unrecognized numbers. We've covered them before on ArcticStartup, but now they've reached a milestone definitely worth covering. The company got in touch with us to announce that they have reached 50 million monthly lookups of unknown numbers on their service. Users can both look up numbers through one of their different mobile apps or then through a web interface.
TrueCaller Reaches 1 Million Users, Has 2 Million In Sight
TrueCaller announced last week that they have reached one million downloads and users for their apps. Only a little over a month ago they announced they have 900 000 users, so the growth has been increasing dramatically in the recent months. TrueCaller is a called ID application for the iPhone, Android and Symbian phones. It has social media integrations and features such as call blocking against spam calls.
Ten Things That Helped Lingo24 Go Global
Editorial note: This is a guest post by Christian Arno, the founder and managing director of Lingo24. While the company is not from the Nordics nor Baltics, the story shares experiences on how Christian went on to create a multi-million dollar business internationally.
From having a simple business idea, to running your own international company is a world of difference, but with a good plan and a bit of courage you can take a leap of faith and put your ideas to the test.
The Switch Is The Next Success Story Finland Has Been Looking For
The company titled its annual report for 2009 as a "Fantastic voyage" and having been at the press conference I can say the title is a big understatement on the story itself. The Switch is a 5 year old clean tech company building converters and generators for the wind energy industry. They have been in business for about 5 years and their first years (2005 and 2006) revenue wise were good - they made a few millions in turnover. In 2009 they turned over 96,5 million euros.
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.
We Are Looking For A Software Writer To Join Our Team
ArcticStartup is continually growing and want to offer more to our readers. Päivi is doing great job covering the clean tech sector, but we feel that there are still a lot of startups that deserve to get coverage.
That in mind we want to open applications for a full position for a writer who know the software industry's ins and outs. The emphasis is on business-to-business software (B2B), since historically that is the biggest exit market in the region and there is currently happening a lot in the space.
Naturally this means that you understand the technology and have an interest in the field. Ideally you would be interested in covering the larger Scandinavian and Baltic scene, but by no means is that a requisite. So if you swim deep in your home country's software startup scene, that's enough. If we find people in different countries interested in covering their own market, we might take on board more than one writer. We also see it as a big plus is you're willing to do a video interviews here and there. Again, you don't have to be a professional blogger or writer by any means: passion and industry knowledge is all it takes.
We can not pay you money at the moment, but as any startups we can offer you other perks along side with the high visibility you would naturally get as a profilic writer and a solid member of our editorial team. If you're still reading, are interested to become an integral part of ArcticStartup team and think you'd fit the bill, write to us at info[at]arcticstartup.com. We know there's a lot of talent in our readership and we'd love to hear from all of you!
A Few Quick Facts For The Weekend From Finland
The week's been way too busy and apologies for the lack of writing from me. However, I've been following the scene and been meeting people over lunch from the startup scene. I've heard a few interesting facts this week that I'd like to share with the readers here.
- NewsToScreen has been growing fast despite my earlier bashing. NewsToScreen is an aggregator of different feeds and activities that can be used to transmit information to large crowds. They now have 80 000 members and transmit 5-10% of Finnish online video and approximately 66% of Finnish commercial video. I also talked to their founder and CEO Marko Parkkinen about the usage of the product and he confirmed that they have slightly shifted the focus and are taking different approaches in capitalising it.
- RunToShop, the social shopping recommendation service, now has over 400 partners. We previously wrote about 150 partners in their network so the growth has been nice. Despite still having a long way to go to successfully integrate the service with these partners I'm glad to see companies also focusing on the commercialisation of their innovation.
- The Deloitte Fast 50/500 Finland list for 2008 is out. A familiar company is topping the list with a growth percentage of close to 3000% - Futurice. Futurice is a web and mobile production powerhouse located in Helsinki, Finland. Second on the list is OpenBit, a mobile payment provider we have covered previously as well.
I'll do some more digging into the Deloitte's list as there are a lot of interesting companies that need to be uncovered in terms of interviews.
Update on Growth Forum '08
Growth Forum 08 (in Finnish, Kasvufoorumi08) is an initiative that started on January this year (see the previous post). The forum is an initiative lead by Microsoft Finland and Association of Software Entrepreneurs. The second seminar of the forum was held in June and now when the thematic group I've been involved in is on holiday it's time for a little recap of the first half of the year.
First of all both seminars have been successes from my perspective as they have attracted a mixed audience of entrepreneurs, seasoned professionals and representatives of public organizations. For example, in the second seminar Jyrki Katainen, the current Minister of Finance of Finland, held a passionate speech on how important it is to cultivate innovation and intellectual property for Finland to succeed in the future. Furthermore, as the national innovation strategy was also published in June, the government is definitely taking steps to ensure that Finland stays competitive even when the number of employed people decreases as a result of aging of the population.
The findings of the second seminar (and the interim project report delivered to Mr. Katainen) and our small thematic group were surprisingly similar. The group's focus was the question whether Finnish startups should make exits or grow themselves. Based on several discussions seems that Finland does not lack technology, skills or education to succeed in the Internet era. Rather the obstacles on road to success are financing and attitude. The early stage financing of startups is largely made by TEKES, which in general does a good job, but would require more support from private venture capitalists. There are some ongoing public initiatives to provide tax benefits early stage VCs and business angels. However, it is too early to tell whether these legislation changes will happen.
The attitude issue is much harder to address, but I believe solving it (even partially) would have much wider implications than improvements on financing. Some of arguments for not to start new companies are reasonable, such as heavy penalties and social stigma of going bankrupt. Most growth-oriented startups fail and they should be allowed to do so without personal consequences such as not getting housing mortgages after companies go bankrupt. However, the other arguments are frequently not based on facts. The public discussion revolves around on how hard the taxation in Finland is or how entrepreneurs must constantly work and get stressed because of that. Furthermore, I have heard many people say "I really would like to start a company, but I lack a good idea". Very very rarely anyone can up with an idea that truly is unique (no-one has thought of it) and can be turned into a profitable business. I believe everyone can come up with good ideas from their everyday life ("isn't there really a better way to do this?"). A good way to launch a startup is to pick a decent idea, found a company and then figure out the next idea or iterate the existing idea. A good article on ideas can be found in favorite blog onstartups.com.
Moreover, we need stories (from successful entrepreneurs) how working as an entrepreneur can be both fun and rewarding. This was one of conclusions of our thematic group. In addition, we agreed that startups need teams that have a varied cultural and knowledge background, not just the "four Finnish engineers". Finnish startup scene would also benefit from a Finnish Y-Combinator that would give a needed boost in the early stages. I would be very interested to know if there already is some Finnish VC (or other party) that has plans like that.
In conclusion, we need positive buzz on startups, being an entrepreneur and really aiming for growth. I think we are going to the right direction on those issues. What are your thoughts on these subjects?
How to grow Finnish software industry out of puberty
Finnish software cluster needs growth. That much was evident as the first seminar of Growth Forum 08 (in Finnish, Kasvufoorumi08) kicked off last week. The forum is an initiative lead by Microsoft Finland and Association of Software Entrepreneurs. The software industry has more than doubled its share of Finland's GDP over the last ten years. Yet there are few Finnish software (or strongly software-related) companies that have grown beyond 100 M€ in annual revenues.
The organizing parties had been able to gather influential backers from governmental level as well. Matti Vanhanen, prime minister of Finland, delivered the keynote speech. He had recently been to United States and had met top executives from Cisco, Google and Microsoft. Mr. Vanhanen said that Finnish government is taking steps to create a fertile environment for software businesses. For example, we can expect possible tax benefits on VC investments to growth companies. In addition, the whole public funding sector needs simplifying. Many panelists agreed that public funding should be concentrated on growth companies, not on entrepreneurs who are reluctant or incapable to grow.
Key problems of the Finnish software industry are: lack of mid-sized internationally competitive software companies and growth difficulties of companies that employ 50 to 100 people. Those companies find themselves in a very competitive global landscape while the domestic market in Finland no longer supports their growth. In addition, according to panelists too many companies still believe that "our product sells itself". When going international many companies would need a so-called "Finnsoftbroker", which would basically be a bridge between the local markets and Finnish companies. According to general opinion no organization yet fills that role.
Ok, so the software industry grows, but not fast enough. What to do? Panelists strongly believed that off-shoring is a strong opportunity, not a threat, to Finland. Finnish economy can never compete with Asian countries on sheer production force. Rather all Finnish software companies planning to go global or international should practice off-shoring from the start. Finland also has relatively few business angels, but currently there are increasingly more people with strong international expertise. These experts should be much more active in aiding startups and other growth companies by investing not money, but sweat equity. Naturally entrepreneurs themselves must aggressively seek out this kind of help and form at least an advisory board shortly after establishing their companies.
Furthermore, forum participants emphasized the need for patents, especially in the US. Mergers and acquisitions is a difficult way to grow and few Finnish companies have yet mastered it. Perhaps too many Finnish software companies get acquired. To build "new F-Secures" they should rather grow organically or do acquisitions themselves.
The forum continues throughout the year 2008. The next seminar is scheduled on June. In the meantime three theme groups (internalization, growth paths and financing) gather and try to come up with recommendations for the future of Finnish software. I participate in the "growth" group and I will be reporting its progress later on.
What do think, where is Finnish software cluster heading to? What needs to be done? Please share your views.
