ArcticEvening Tallinn - 1st of March, 2012
We're back with organising ArcticEvenings! This year we'll do altogether six ArcticEvenings and our annual Arctic15 conference (more on the other events soon). We will kick off our events this year with ArcticEvening Tallinn on Thursday, the 1st of March. Our theme for the event is startup metrics. We also have a really good speaker coming to present his view on startup metrics - William Wolfram of DealDash. We recently interviewed him on Unfair Advantage about the metrics they use in DealDash. Back then he said they are obsessed with metrics and data. I'm sure there will be more interesting things to hear and ask William on stage.
Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Helsinki - We Have A Problem
Allan Martinson, one of the most best known and experienced investors from Estonia (currently the founding and managing partner of MTVP), has cast concern about the amount of new accelerators and different support programs for startups. He states a valid point, that if every town and your brother has an accelerator they will fail to attract critical mass to support their functions. Martinson states that Baltics really need one big accelerator with strong financing and a strong team to make a splash in the global pond of startup activities.
There really cannot be too much discussion around this topic, and therefore we have included Allan Martinson's original statement from his public Facebook status below.
Future Female + ArcticStartup Pre-Christmas Party December 1st
Mark it down in your calendar - December 1st. That's the day we will be throwing a little pre-Christmas party together with Future Female. The event will take place in Siltanen, Hämeentie 13B here in Helsinki, Finland. The event is expected to kick-off at around 6pm. Even though, the event is free we'd like you to sign-up with a form that will be provided at a later date. To learn more about signing up to the event, join the Future Female facebook page. This is also the first time Future Female events are open for men.
Fromdistance Acquired By U.S. Based Numara Software
The Finnish/Estonian mobile device management service, Fromdistance, was acquired on Tuesday by Tampa, Florida based Numara Software. Fromdistance was founded in 2004 and is located in Tallinn, Estonia.
Fromdistance's mobile device management software offers the ability for a company's IT to manage a fleet of wireless devices using a standard browser interface. And as the name implies, Fromdistance allows this software management to take place remotely with no physical contact. The service has been gaining popularity among IT professionals, and is even used to manage the Finnish Parliaments' range of Nokia phones for installation and application management purposes.
Three Events To Watch: StartupGarage + Goto Conf + Slush
Every now and then we highlight a few good events people should attend to make the most of their networking, business opportunities or learning new things. There are three good conferences we believe people should watch in the coming month or so. They are Goto Conference organised in Aarhus, Denmark, Slush organised in Helsinki, Finland and StartupGarage -event organised in Tallinn, Estonia. All slightly different, but surely worth your time to check them out if they're of interest to you. Below's a short break down of each event.
Well Done Arctic Valley!
The startup ecosystem in the Arctic Valley (pardon us for our selfish term) hasn't always been a very well functioning one. Not that it is extremely functioning today, we're increasingly getting more evidence that the world is noticing your startups, your efforts and most importantly - your passion to change the world.
This week Wired UK wrote a piece on the hottest startup cities in Europe. Three of the nine startup cities in the outlined story are from the region; Tallinn, Stockholm and Helsinki.
Link: Lessons Learned About Raising Money In The US
Hardi Meybaum, one of the co-founders of GrabCAD, gave an interesting talk at Garage48 HUB last week in Tallinn on how to raise money in the US. He also explains a few of his lessons learned in doing so in a short presentation found in the blog post on Garage48 blog.
Hardi drew three rows on the wall “This is what it all depends: social traction, product traction and team traction. If you want to raise money in US, you need to develop 3 things: your network, your product and your team.”
Link: GrabCAD and Hardi Meybaum: Lessons to learn about raising money in the US.
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):
Reminder: Elevator Pitch Competition For Nordic & Baltic Startups – Apply Now
As announced earlier, we're organizing an Elevator Pitch Competition for all startups and growth companies in the Baltic and Nordic countries on June 3rd in Tallinn. The applications are due tonight May 12th at 8:00 PM EET.
We'll have a pan-Nordic/Baltic VC jury, so this is a perfect opportunity to put yourself on the radar and get valuable feedback on your pitch from an experienced jury. We also have great prizes for the winners, and of course coverage on ArcticStartup.
Pitch And Win - Announcing Elevator Pitch Competition For Nordic And Baltic Startups
For the third time, we are organizing an Elevator Pitch Competition for all startups and growth companies in the Baltic and Nordic countries. The competition will be held in Tallinn on June 3rd at the International Technology Law Association's IV Tallinn Conference.
Whether or not you're interested in applying to the pitch competition, check out the conference agenda (pdf) which features this year a keynote address by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia, and topics like marketing and branding, early stage financing, and landing the first customers. The conference is free to attend, but space is limited and registration is needed.
The Four Favorite Teams From Last Weekend's Garage48 Tallinn Event
While Garage48 is still a little under a month away from the African Safari, the event at Tallinn last weekend has had the curtains dropped. The event saw over 120 people working hard in 18 teams to give their ideas a touch of reality. Garage48 is a weekend type company development project, where people of different crafts get together to work on projects for the duration of 48 hours. After the weekend, teams present their results in front of an audience.
Garage48 This Weekend In Riga, Many More To Follow
Garage48 is one of those startup weekend type events, where people gather together for about 48 hours and develop something that could potentially be founded into a startup. The concept isn't all that old, but the people behind it have been active. This weekend Garage48 will take place in Riga and in the coming months, a lot of other cities will also see a Garage48 event take place. In April (15th-17th), Garage48 will take place in Tallinn, at the end of August in Tartu. Later in the year Garage48 will most likely be visiting Stockholm and Helsinki as well. Additionally, the team will have 5 events in Africa this year.
Garage48 Hits Helsinki This Weekend
Garage48 is an Estonian originated concept that is building up momentum nicely in the Nordics and Baltics. The event has been organised in Tallinn and Tartu previously and Helsinki will be its first international debut. Not a bad way to go abroad at all. Garage48 has had to make more tickets available a couple of times as people have been wanting to participate. The event will feature 51 Finns, 41 Estonians, 11 Latvians and a couple of individuals from the UK and USA participating in a 48 hour product development competition.
Garage48 Opens A Co-Working Space In Tallinn
Garage48 is a boot camp style iniative to build new web services in just 48 hours. The concept has been a roaring success in Estonia, where it was started last year. This week, Garage48 announced that they'll be opening a co-working space in Tallinn in December for all entrepreneurs to use. Not only is Garage48 opening a co-working space in Tallinn, they are also organising one of their boot camp style weekend events in Helsinki in January in co-operation with AaltoES. I talked to Ragnar Sass, one of the people behind the concept and what Garage48 HUB will be like when it opens.
MobileMonday Celebrates 10 Years Of Networking
MobileMonday, a simple concept that has eventually turned into a large networking platform for all things mobile, celebrates its 10 year birthday this week in Helsinki and Tallinn. According to MobileMonday Estonia, close to 500 people attended the three day summit. There are now 108 chapters around the world helping people network around mobile issues.
ArcticEvening Tallinn - Get Your Ticket Now!
Just a quick reminder that we still have some tickets left for our event on the 1st of June in Tallinn! We have a great setup for the evening and it would be a pity to miss it, so register your free ticket using the registrations module below. We'll have a very interesting panel topped off with about 10+ one minute pitches by young startups and entrepreneurs. For those in Tallinn, we'll also have quite a few Finns coming down to Estonia - so take the evening off for some valuable business networking as well.
ArcticEvening Tallinn, June 1st - An Update
We've made some more progress with the setup of the ArcticEvening Tallinn, including some really attractive prices for getting to and staying there for the event. First of all, we will open ticket registrations for the event on the 25th of May. Mark it down in your calendar. The ticket registrations will open at 8am Tallinn time (GMT+3).
Startups, Apply For 1-Minute Presentations In ArcticEvening Tallinn!
We've set the date and are on the final stretches of the preparations for the second ArcticEvening this year, to be held in Tallinn on the 1st of June. I don't want to give away too much at this point on the program itself as we're still finalising it. However, I do want to announce a small part of the program now so startups can prepare for it and consider it if they'd want to participate.
Garage48 Launches 16 Startups
A week ago, Tallinn hosted one very interesting startup event, Garage 48. Garage48 is an event organised by Estonian Startup Leaders Club. The event's title hints at the concept. The event is organised over a 48 hour period during which the participants build and launch companies. A week ago, 16 startups were launched as a result of the 48 hour period.
Get Your Pitch Ready For VCs And Win - Announcing Elevator Pitch Competition
We are proud to announce, for the second year in a row, an Elevator Pitch Competition for all Baltic and Nordic startups and growth companies, to be held in Tallinn on June 1st.
The jury of the competition consists of pan-Nordic-Baltic VCs, so this is a perfect opportunity to put yourself on the radar and get valuable feedback on your pitch from experienced financiers. We also have great prizes for the winners.
The applications to the Pitch Competition must be done using this form.
Please send your application to events (at) arcticstartup.com latest by May 6th 8:00 PM EET. Finalists will be announced by May 12th.
The Elevator Pitch Competition is organized as part of the Third Annual Tallinn Conference by The International Technology Law Association and Enterprise Estonia. The conference will be held at the Swissotel Tallinn during May 31-June 1, and the Elevator Pitch Competition will take place in the afternoon of June 1, 2010.
The conference theme this year is Preparing The Technology Company For Breakout: Challenges and Tools for the Nordic Region. Last year the conference drew in VCs, entrepreneurs and business owners, and naturally business lawyers (of the good type...) from all over the Nordic and Baltic countries, and also many guests from the USA. Registration is now open.
And that's not all - ArcticStartup will also organize ArcticEvening Tallinn in the evening of June 1st, to wrap up the conference and the pitch competition, and to create a networking forum for the international bunch in the city. Mark it in your calendar and stay tuned for more info!
Crowdsourcing Ideas For ArcticEvenings
As mentioned before in the summary of events for spring 2010, we will be organising three ArcticEvenings this spring. The show will most likely kick off with an ArcticEvening in Helsinki in April followed by ArcticEvenings in Tallinn and Stockholm most probably in May and June respectively. However, this time I thought it would be great to hear your ideas regarding the events and what kind of events you would like to participate this spring.
Summary Of Some Of This Spring's Startup Events
We've been looking closely at the startup scene in the Nordics and Baltics for the last two and a half years and I have to say, the amount of events on the market these days is very attractive. There are a lot of different kind of events and I'm sure there's something for everyone. While these events have their own functions and drive their own agendas, there's no getting round it - they're great fun and will surely improve your business if not by any other means than at least by networking with the other visitors there.
More Tickets Available For Tomorrow's ArcticEvening Tallinn!
ArcticEvening Tallinn sold out yesterday, but we decided to add another 50 tickets to the event. The evening will be a very interesting one with 3 entrepreneurs in different stages of their company explaining about the importance of marketing and how it is made successful for the company. You can read more about the event in our previous blog post, but just to sum it up we'll have Martin Koppel from Fortumo, Petteri Koponen (former Jaiku Co-Founder) from Lifeline Ventures and Kai Lemmetty from Floobs.
ArcticEvening Going Tallinn 3rd December, Registration Open Now!
Early next month we will go to Tallinn, Estonia to hold our end-of-the-year ArcticEvening in co-operation with OpenCoffee Club Tallinn and Connect Estonia. The event will take place on 3. December and focus on startup marketing. We will hold a panel under the 'What is marketing for startups and how to do it effectively'
Yet again, we have a solid lineup coming: An experienced serial entrepreneur that have a several exits under his belt and two young guns who are on their way to their fist big hits. See our list of panelist below and figure out who's who.
The ticket sales are open and the price is the only right one, the tickets are free. Go get yours while they last! We will announce the venue in due course once we get them confirmed.
If you haven’t been to ArcticEvenings before, we suggest you take a look at videos from previous events.
Tailor Your Scarfs With Scarfmaker
A nifty little Estonian startup called Scarfmaker, has launched its less than a month ago. As the name suggests they make scarfs, but not any kind of scarfs - custom tailored ones. The company was founded in October 2008 and has been around a little over a year to develop the service. In the year of developing the service and company, I have to say I like the end result and makes me want to test their service.
DailyPerfect Launches A Predictive News Service
DailyPerfect, an Estonian startup, has launched an interesting predictive news service. We wrote about DailyPerfect earlier with a quote: "it predicts users’ interests through an automated semantic analysis of information publicly available on the web." Now the time has come to validate whether that holds true.
I took a ride with their service and I have to say it got me saying, "ooh, nice" couple of times. The unexpectedness of the new valid content with content that I follow already was in perfect harmony.
Fits.me Raised A €1.3m Round And Won In Tallinn
I'm writing this on a ferry over from Tallinn to Helsinki coming back from a pitching event we organized in collaboration with Enterprise Estonia as part of the second annual International Technology Law Association conference in Tallinn, Estonia. The pitch competition was held with support from Connect Estonia. I very much enjoyed the conference as it mixed nicely technology law and venture capital finance. There was some interesting comments from a top-of-the-line Nordic and Baltic VC panel, but I'll get into that in another post. Here's about the line up of companies that pitched themselves to the jury.
Based on the application process five startups had made their way into final pitch competition. Here's some thoughts on each of them.
Skype To Target Business Users
Even though Skype is not a startup anymore, I believe there is a great story behind this news item. Wall Street Journal has written about Skype, how they are under pressure from eBay stockholders to create more revenue or be sold off. Reports show that Skype has hit 400 million users and has created some $145 million in revenues during the first quarter of 2009.
Sten Tamkivi told us in Tallinn this January that they have seen a rise in Skype usage as the recession hit the finance markets. Seems the figures support this strongly. Even though Skype has been built as a consumer product they are under pressure to create more revenue for their owners. One of the new areas they are targeting is the business communication industry as well as moving into the territory of other Nordic VoIP companies such as Rebtel.
Skype Spear Heading A Bigger Change
Whatever you say about the materialized synergies of Ebay and Skype after Ebay paid $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock in 2005 to acquire the IP telephony trail blazer, Skype is currently really making me smile by changing the landscape.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the spiraling global economics outlook, Skype last year earned US$550 million in revenue, a 44 per cent rise, year on year. During the last ArcticEvening that we held in Tallinn, Stem Tamkivi, Skype's Chief Evangelist, told me during the panel that interestingly Skype actually saw the economic downturn coming quite early as their usage started to rise like it has not risen in years.
Not only that, according to PCWorld, Skype maintains that separate research points to 95 per cent of business users saving money using it, with about a third cutting their phone bills by half. Almost 80 per cent of the survey of 'Skype for Business' users, showed that nearly 80 per cent had seen an increase in productivity and were working closer with their co-workers because of using Skype ... [And] the research shows that some 62 per cent of business subscribers were using Skype to better communicate with their customers. Some impressive figures. For us, here at ArcticStartup, this is clear sign of the times.
Mark my words. If it wasn't clear to you before that IP Telephony was taking its next significant step speeded up by the economic belt tightening in the firms, now it should be crystal clear and I believe we see sigficant even if gradual changes very soon in the way small businesses and individual employees start to exploit this opportunity in cross border communication.
I already personally make 100% of my business calls to Tallinn via Skype. Many firms in Estonia have even a separate Skype button on their website to contact them via Skype. This is surely something we could take upon and start running our business more wisely, not only across the Scandinavia and Baltics, but globally.
Yes, some still claim it does not cut it when it comes to the quality of the sound, and you just can't afford to have a bad connection when you're talking to customers. A fair point. But Skype 4.0, should now offer higher quality audio, through 'super wideband audio' and a new bandwidth manager for video calling.
And we're not alone in our praise. The Finish giant, Nokia, has also made a big move. On Tuesday Nokia announced that they are planning to fully integrate Skype into their devices:
The first Skype-enabled Nokia N97 devices will be rolling out from the third quarter. Using Skype on your S60 device isn’t new, but the level of integration with the service and the device is. Skype won’t be running as a separate application, but actually plugged directly into your contacts...
Congratulations for both companies and especially to the users. I have high expectations and it makes me hopeful seeing Nokia having the balls to stand up to the operators. The same enabler that works for small businesses can do much more for the developing countries, which are exactly the markets where Nokia is strong. This announcement alone could mean a bigger chance towards a higher quality of life over time to many people in developing countries than a whole lot of World Bank projects together. Yes, there's a long way to go and now for example the WiFi hotspots are few and far in between in the least developed countries, but there's still a lot of people who can benefit from this from South America to Africa.
ArcticEvening In Tallinn - A Success
Last night we held ArcticEvening in Tallinn, Estonia in co-operation with Connect Estonia, so we could bring part of the Finnish startup scene to meet the Tallinn scene. This is a great way to get people from different scenes to meet and find new opportunities to work together beyond national borders. The night was a success. We had a four startups presenting, Scred, Edicy, Snoobi and Nutiteq. The audience put the startups to test during the Q&A, but for the most part the startups surviced well.
The panel was equally good. Sten Tamkivi, Allan Martinson and Taneli Tikka gave the audience what they came for - a very interesting and thought provokin take on the current economy, the startup ecosystem, most interesting companies and events of 2008 and what they predict will the ones to follow in 2009.
What stuck with me was Allan's remark that you should look beyonnd just the Internet for new business ideas. The focus has been so squarely on the Internet for the past few years that the biggest opportunities might now be on the edges of the Internet where the Internet meets the real world, or in totally different areas, like for example the food industry that's trying to cope with the EU legislation. Similarly, after I grilled Taneli for a while to reveal the areas he is looking most closely at, he mentioned the fast improvements in the genetics industry and the possibilities to link the social web to the improvements in that area. Similarly, Sten made us think beyond the 'Skype as phone' concept talking about mobility and how Skype is looking at possibilities of introducing an Open API.
A great evening, that we want to build on also in the future. Look out for more ArcticEvenings around the Baltic and Nordic countries.
