Hitlantis Gets $1.5M Funding
Indymusic discovery platform from Finland, Hitlantis, this week closed a substantial angle round worth $1.5M. The team of investors include senior Nokia executives, JSH Capital Oy, Hasan & Partners, PM Ruukki Oy, Notion Oy, Rock Island Investment Oy, T&T Enterprises Oy, as well as other private individuals from the media and telecom sectors. The new funds will be used for product development and market expansion in 'key territories'. What those territories include was not stated but one can guess US is one of them. Asia is the other: Hitlantis recently launched a localized version of their service in South Korea and hinted that other markets would be opened soon. Moreover, unofficial sources claim the company plans a series A round of up to $7M for the fall.
Flockler, Hitlantis Victorious In Tallinn Pitch Competition
We organized an elevator pitch competition the other week as part of the International Technology Law Association's Fourth Annual Baltic Conference. It was the third year in a row we have thrown the pitch competition. This year we had five companies (introduced below) taking part. Flockler emerged as the winner, and the runner-up position was grabbed by Hitlantis by Cognitive Maps Ltd.
The winners and the other finalists (not in any particular order):
MindTrek Launchpad Competition: Creating the next Black Swan?
Applifier is indeed on fire - they came out as the winners of the main prize (20 010€) of the MindTrek’s Launchpad competition. Press jury’s award worth 4000€ was given to Hitlantis and Intoloop took home 1000€ prize from the audience vote. General opinion among MindTrek audience and judges was that all pitches were of higher quality than in previous years.
Applifier
Jussi Laakkonen from Applifier entered the competition with a very strong case. Their cross-promotion platform helps Facebook games attract more users faster and cheaper. Applifier’s rapid expansion has awed a lot of onlookers: their userbase grew from zero to 55 million in less than 10 months (updated) 100 days and Jussi confidently claimed that the company has not stopped growing yet. The pitch was full of energy, can-do attitude and quite a bit of arrogance, all of which are definitely encouraged in any entrepreneur. Though in an earlier interview with ArcticStartup Jussi politely avoided disclosing how much revenue they are making, he made it clear that it is quite substantial. There is some scepticism around Applifier’s business model as it is easy to copy and replicate so should a different company enter the market with cheaper prices Applifier would be in trouble. Nevertheless, congratulations for winning the main prize - it sure is a sweet reward for the company’s mind-boggling success.
Mindtrek Finalists Competing For 20 010€ Announced
Mindtrek is one of the notable technology and startup oriented conferences taking place in the Nordics that startups should pay attention to. Why? For one, they are giving away 20 010 € worth of prize money to most attractive startups that match their Launchpad criteria. This year's finalists, that will be pitching at the event, have been announced. They are listed in alphabetical order below.
Hitlantis Looking To Enable Better Content Discovery
Reporting from the second day of MoneyTalks, being held here in Otaniemi, Espoo, Finland I bumbed into a new innovative music startup called Hitlantis. I talked to one of the co-founders Timo Poijärvi about the concept and what they are doing. Poijärvi has worked in the music industry and with some startups before, but has a strong experience from the ways the music industry works. This showed up in our talks and he openly questioned the need of Teosto (Finnish Composers' Copyright Society) and record labels for musicians. The future is about the community around the artists.
