CakeHR Provides Simple Online HR Software
If you run your own business, you've probably got an old Excel file somewhere that tries to keep track of employees' days off. It works, but it could be so much easier if it were more self-managed and actually a calendar. A team from Riga (but now working out of the UK) is trying to make HR functions for SMEs easier with Cake.HR. The service is currently in private beta, but they are giving free accounts to companies until they turn on payments sometime in early March. The team also tells us they're giving free-for-life accounts in return for feedback on the service.
Nordic Performance In The Deloitte 500
Every year Deloitte puts together a ranking of the fastest growing companies in Europe. We edited that list down, and put together all the companies featured in the top half of the Deloitte 500 that were in ArcticStartup's area of interest. The first number you'll see is the company's ranking on the complete European list of companies, and also keep in mind the final number is based on the percentage revenue growth over the last five years:
Eniram Grows 2010 Revenue 300%
Eniram is a company we haven't written about in a while. The last time was actually in 2009. However, they've been growing their business ever since and a while ago we received their 2010 figures. Impressive growth indeed, the company has grown their 2010 revenue some 300% compared to 2009. In 2009 Eniram's revenue was about 830 000 euros so this means they turned over some 3,3 million euros in 2010.
What do they actually do then? The Finnish based software company promotes their products, Eniram Onshore and Eniram Onboard, that help fleet owners and captains better handle their ship to save fuel and overall improve efficiency.
Winners Of Venture Cup Idea Competition In Denmark
Venture Cup Idea Competition in Denmark is an annual business idea competition that takes place at the end of the calendar year. The winners are chosen early next year in five categories: applied technology, cleantech, lifesciences, services and software. The winner in each category receives 25 000 DKK (roughly 3,300€) to kick-start their project. Essentially, the competition is an instrument to reveal the most promising business ideas in the various sectors and help them take the first steps in realizing them. We looked at the technology companies that made it to the final to discover the new innovation coming from Denmark in 2011.
Tuxera Shows Example In Finding Your Niche
Tuxera is a Finnish software startup specialized in file system interoperability software. The firm has developed Windows-interoperable file system drivers for NTFS and exFAT, allowing device manufacturers who use Linux or other non-Windows platforms to still provide plug and play access to the files from Windows or Mac computers. It claims to be the only company currently providing such system drivers to device manufacturers who use Linux or other non-Windows platform.
Building And Managing A Successful Sales Team In The U.S. Market, Part II
Last week we covered some basics in getting into the U.S. B2B software market. This article further elaborates the tips from the presentation by Pirjo Tuomi, who has quite a many years of sales experience in the U.S. market. The focus is on building and managing a local sales team for the B2B market.
Kicking Off B2B Software Sales - Lessons From The Field
I attended Software Sales Camp seminar organized by Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology) earlier this week. The event was a two-day "bootcamp" aimed for improving Finnish software firms' business-to-business sales and marketing skills. Going forward, I will summarize a few interesting tips and experiences shared by the seasoned speakers at the event. One main theme throughout the event was also the U.S. market entry and issues related - I will get back to that later.
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!
Interview With Oricane
Oricane is a Swedish software company, making a difference in energy consumption. The company has had a strong track record with research into the technology they are now capitalising. One of our contributors, Daiva Naravaite founder of AlpinaSearch, had a quick interview with Fredrik Kallioniemi one of the founders of Oricane.
Daiva: Fredrik, what does Oricane do?
Fredrik: Oricane is a Green software company and our award winning technology is based on patented energy saving algorithms that makes decision processes in software more efficient, we can for example make packet classification and packet forwarding, more efficient.
Daiva: What is your signature product?
Fredrik: Oricane´s flagship product, BioCAM is an innovative solution to well known addressing scalability issues in the core Internet. Internet infrastructure is rationalized, bringing significant lowered costs and reduced power consumption by 75-95% depending on application. BioCAM and is also available in a mobile edition, which is an energy saving IT-security software solution designed for tomorrow´s mobile surfers that request not only a firewall when surfing but also an environmentally engaged operator and increased battery life time in the mobile device.
Daiva: So what else is in the pipeline?
Fredrik: Oricane is also developing an indexing and search engine based on a completely new technology adapted for large "enterprise search" applications. This will be launched under the product name BioDEX. It is a generic self learning search engine for a variety of applications including directory services (i.e., phone directories), data centers, web indexing, and digital communities. BioDEX is also available in a mobile edition that is a patented solution for compressing, storing and searching information in mobile phones and other small devices.
Daiva: How different are both products?
Fredrik: Whereas BioCAM addresses energy efficiency issues when transporting information through the network, BioDEX addresses energy efficiency when information is stored and searched.
Daiva: It looks to me that with this technology you could ambitiously address the world's entire software industry? How?
Fredrik: We specialize in developing methods, technologies and software components to enable computer programs to "do a lot with little". Quite simply, efficiency!
Thanks to Daiva for the Interview!
Saplo's Intelligent Context Analysis in Seedcamp Test
Saplo is a new Swedish startup, which also got to the next round of Seedcamp. Tomorrow will tell if the company got to the final. The founder Mattias Tyrberg commented his plans and firm to Swedish press last week (another article).
Saplo has a software called AIAnalys, which according to Tyrberg can understand text in a similar way as humans do. It's based on intelligent context analysis, meaning the software can value information automatically. It allows to get rid of slow manual work and problems with subjective judgment, like individual bias and systematic errors, in analysing and evaluating different kinds of texts. The software also enables analyzing huge pieces of text, which may have been impractical before. According to Tyrberg this kind of a product is of interest in many different areas, like media analysis, advertising, and web site optimization to name a few obvious ones.
The main benefits are the product saves money and it enables potentially more revenues. For example, with the technology one can measure exactly how positive or negative a person or firm is covered in media, and the program can show a graph with a comparison to another person or firm. One can also optimize ads with AIAnalys. Saplo web pages state results up to 70 % higher ad revenue can be achieved through presenting the right ads to the right reader, as AIAnalys can understand the text and present suitable ads accordingly. The software can also be used to tweak the whole user experience on a website, to make the users stay longer on the site by displaying similar content, which the user is interested in.
According to Mattias Tyrberg the technology is unique, even though there are some competitors in the sector. Saplo's technology is based on several years of research, and Tyrberg's final thesis, which he doesn't want to turn in until the patent process allows for it. It seems there's potential for a financing round later on as well, since Tyrberg mentions he's especially looking forward to establishing risk financier contacts in London.
