Nikolaj Nyholm Joins Sunstone Capital
Nikolaj Nyholm, a Danish serial entrepreneur, who stepped down as Polar Rose's CEO just recently will join a Nordic venture capital firm Sunstone Capital as Partner in the Technology Ventures team on January 1.
Nyholm has spent the last 10 years working with internet infrastructure projects, commercial ventures and organizing, among other things, Reboot with Thomas Madsen-Mygdal. He has previously founded Speednames/Ascio acquired by Group NBT (NBT.NL), Imity merged with Zyb (acquired by Vodaphone Group), and Organic Network, a WiFi startup whose legacy is OpenWRT.org, an open source WiFi project.
Without a doubt this is good move by Sunstone Capital as Nyholm has an extremely wide network and is considered one of the most visionary entrepreneurs in the space. Quite naturally, at Sunstone Nyholm will focus on developing early-stage investments in the software, mobile and an internet space. Commenting his move, Nyholm said that " There aren't enough seasoned entrepreneurs joining VC firms in Europe, which should otherwise allow us to stir things up a whole lot more! " We couldn't agree more.
ArcticEvening Going Copenhagen - Last Chance To Get A Ticket
To continue our ArcticEvening tour around Northern Europe we will be organising an ArcticEvening in Copenhagen, Denmark on 24th June. The date is set so that it is in the eve of the awesome reboot conference.
We have still some 20 tickets or so left and you can reserve your free ticket here or at below. Go get your now!
We are going with a different format this time (no panel) and want to bring out all the best startups in the region. We have a amazing line up coming.
Here's the list of startups that will be presenting (we also might add a few extra appearances). The presentations start at 18.30 sharp(!), so be there in time.
ArcticEvening Goes Copenhagen - Get Your Free Ticket Now
At the end of the month just after midsummer, ArcticStartup will be organising an ArcticEvening in Copenhagen, Denmark. The date is set so that it is in the eve of the awesome reboot conference.
We have previously lined up a panel for our events, but since there is so much untapped startup potential in Copenhagen, we decided to set aside the whole evening for startup pitches and those who want to come and meet the startups. So if you're a startup and would like to receive Nordic wide coverage for your startup - apply for a slot in the evening. Have a look at the guidelines for applying below. Similarly, we'd love to see you if your interested in seeing and meeting a great line up of Nordic startups.
If you haven't been to ArcticEvenings before, we suggest you take a look at this video. The events are laid back and we've received a lot of compliments from organising these in other Nordic cities and now it's time for Copenhagen.
Venue
The venue for the event is the La Oficina located at Suomisvej 4. The event will begin at 6.30pm.
How do I sign up?
Tickets can be reserved below or directly from Amiando for free as long as they last. Without exceptions, in the past the tickets have ran out extremely fast, so make sure you are here to get your ticket. Make sure you'll show up at the venue if you reserve a ticket, or you'll end up on our black list which means there's no coming to our events in the future. We are able to host the event free of charge for participants due to our wonderful sponsors. Our sponsors are presented below.
Startup pitches
In Copenhagen we have reserved the floor purely for startup pitches. If you would like to come and present your company - drop us an e-mail at info (at) arcticstartup.com and with a few sentences explain what you are doing, in what stage your company is at and why you should be chosen to present at the event. The occasion will be very informal so you don't need a slide deck nor a demo. We'd just like to hear you tell about your startup to the audience and meet the other entrepreneurs. Unfortunately we can't guarantee everyone a time slot to present (even though we do our best to fit everyone in), so we will make sure those with the best effort get a chance. Deadline for applications is 18th of June.
We will let you know by 20th June.
Sponsors
Our event is made possible by our Sponsors. Do take time to get to know them - they are one of the most interesting organisations in the industry. We hand pick our sponsors to bring value to the evenings - these guys are truly worth your time.
Sombiz
Sombiz is a Social Media Business Network of Finnish social media & Web 2.0 companies, research institutions, and other organisations and individuals operating in the field of social media.
Sombiz provides a network for organisations to collaborate, learn from each other, and create partnerships. By connecting business with research Sombiz is stimulating the creation of new innovations. The ultimate goal for Sombiz is to find new business opportunities and help companies to grow and go international.
Sombiz operates as a thematic network of the Finnish Digibusiness Cluster and is a part of the government funded Centre of Expertise Programme (OSKE). In 2008 the building of the Sombiz network was selected as the national “OSKE Top Project”. The project is funded by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy.
The background organisation of Sombiz is Technology Centre Hermia Ltd.
Sombiz is a Finnish-based network operating internationally. The strategy of Sombiz is a “BUGC” approach: linking Business, Universities, Government, and Communities in order to build and boost the social media business ecosystem.
Hammarström Puhakka Partners
Hammarström Puhakka Partners, Attorneys Ltd is a law firm specialised in business law. The firm has a good corporate practice with experienced M&A advisers acting constantly for domestic and cross-border clients. Specialists provide M&A services to public and private companies relating to assignments concerning private equity and venture capital transactions. The firm is constantly involved with complex transactions in connection with private equity firms and experienced in advising private equity/venture capital investors in divesting their investments.
Thomas Madsen-Mygdal and Nikolaj Nyholm
Thomas and Nikolaj are among other things angel investors and very active players in the startup market. They want to support the Copenhagen ArcticEvening and create value for the whole industry. You can follow them on twitter or read their blogs.
Thomas
twitter.com/mygdal
www.bootstrapping.net/
Nikolaj
twitter.com/nikolaj
radar.oreilly.com/nikolaj/
Reserve tickets
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24hbc - An Atmosphere For Successful Innovation
24 Hour Business Camp (24hbc) was wrapped up today at noon. 49 new services and apps (and counting) saw daylight in the last 12 hours and these services are not just some quirky apps, but full blown services. You can find all the projects here.
After all the talk I’ve heard during the past year about innovation clusters and what not, which are without exception driven from top down by pouring money into what are effectively projects that are born dead, 24hbc was the first occasion in which I saw innovation truly actually happening. It’s all about passion and caring, and it matters. In a same way as a person can care for her startup, events and even long term projects should have the same burning desire of a single person or a group of people to create something that matters to them and to their peer group. Anything else fails before it has really started.
All the events I’ve been to, 24hbc was the best I’ve seen along with Reboot that takes place in Copenhagen, Denmark (Reboot beign very different type of event and a lot less productive, but the culture was the same nonetheless). It all came down to the atmosphere. People enjoying their peers company and pushing each other to excel after seeing all the effort that Ted Valentin saw to pull all of us all together. Even the corporate sponsor Bonnier R&D had the right people there who not only blended in, but made the event only better. As they wrote in the Live Blog that were set up for the participants, Beata Wickbom and us to contribute to:
“As sponsors, Bonnier R&D´s main focus was to meet all the entrepreneurs and learn as much from them as we could. Unsurprisingly, we soon realised that the temptation to build something ourselves proved to be to difficult to handle.”
They came up with an innovation that reflects the high level of services that all the participants worked on, and most even finished within a mere 24 hours. Here’s Bonnier’s two cents:
“Morris and I played with the new Mirr:or RFID-reader from Violet. It suddenly dawned on us thatthe new SL bus/underground-card has an RFID chip inside, and therefore most people in Stockholm will have one soon. A world of opportunities open.
With a lot of help from Herman (and Pelle), we made a small script that connected the Mirr:or to the Mobilstart API. When the chip is read, a text message is sent to a predefined phone number, notifying what time the reading occurred.
We think this could become a smart little application for families. When the kids come home they simply place their SL card over the reader, and automatically the parents get a text message saying ‘Hi! Sara came home at 14:15’. “
Bonnier was just a drop in the ocean; The young guns developed equally or more promising services, of which I will surely write about later on once they get off the ground. See all of them here and here. Powerfull stuff!
Miikka and I enjoyed our stay. Thank you Ted! Previous post on 24hbc here and here.
