Finnish Gaming Isn't Only Helsinki: See Tampere For The Second Gaming Hotspot
With Supercell and Rovio being the two major media magnets in Finland, it is easy to overlook what else is happening in the region. We have earlier put a claim on Helsinki being the world's mobile gaming capital, which with Supercell making over USD 2.4 Million a day and Rovio claiming over €152.2 million in sales, is probably a fair argument.
However when it comes to day-to-day success, it is definitely not all about Helsinki. Tampere, a city in southern Finland with a population of just 217,000 is the second biggest gaming hub in Finland and has a lot of initiatives that foster the gaming industry.
Perhaps in some sense, the Tampere gaming industry has an even longer history than that of Helsinki. Traditionally Nokia's biggest R&D site was based in Tampere and in 2007 THQ, the North American games publisher who at the time had a turnover of over $1 billion, bought the Tampere based gaming company - Universomo.
Startup Sauna Goes On Tour This Spring As Well
Startup Sauna is going on tour this spring as well with their warmups. Warmups are short events that take usually a day, where local entrepreneurs in the cities they visit get to pitch to the Startup Sauna coaches and organisers for a chance to get accepted into the program. The winner of each warmup will receive €1500 as prize money to cover travel and accommodation for the program in Finland. The six week program is taking place in April and May this spring. Based on the quality of the applications, the program will select 10 to 15 companies to participate. Each company will further develop their product or service during the 6-week intesive and present it at the end of the program at the demo day.
During the coming one and a half months, Startup Sauna will visit 11 different places from Shangai to Warsaw as well as Moscow to Kuopio. Below is the schedule as of today:
How Startups Are Built In Tampere: Case Protomo & StartupStairs
Tampere is definitely one of Finland's start-up hubs, thanks to the New Factory. The entity was created in 2008 out of frustration with regional cooperation (or lack thereof). 'There was too much talk and paperwork going on between innovation programs and various institutions in the region', shares Jukka Matikainen, Program Director. 'We wanted to create sustainable cooperation between all those partners through concrete projects'. That is how the New Factory's programs were founded. Last time we reviewed Demola, an innovation platform for students and companies. This time in focus are New Factory's start-up oriented programs: Protomo and StartupStairs.
How Startups Are Built In Tampere: Case Of Demola
Uusi Tehdas (New Factory) is situated in the very heart of Tampere. The building is full of history: founded in 1835 it used to be a cotton factory and the biggest industrial building in the whole country. Today it's the local center of innovation and start-ups. Instead of old engine rooms, the New Factory has four programs that help students, entrepreneurs and innovators put their ideas into practice: Demola, Protomo, Suuntamo and StartupStairs.
Demola attracts students from all the universities in the area to gain study credits by building demo products for projects. Protomo helps creating start-ups by matchmaking talents, building prototypes and developing business ideas. Suuntaamo gathers a community of users from various backgrounds who are willing to test new products and give feedback. Finally, StartupStairs is an evolving program that helps most potential companies that come out of Demola and Protomo to get funded and expand to new markets.
Gemilo Social Is A One Stop Shop For Your Communication Needs
Gemilo Social is a product created by the Tampere based Finnish startup, Gemilo. The product features a multitude of different possibilities, but the main focus of it is in improving organisational effectiveness and through that, productivity. Like its name, the product harnesses many social features and uses those so organisations can share documents, images and comment on those - taking communication away from e-mail. Also, at the core level, each user is given a “virtual desktop” as a window to use the service.
Flockler Lets Your Audience Engage And Create Stories
Perhaps the worst issue with everyday articles on news are quite dry, primarily for the fact that the content is written by one person. Although there are comments section available and the integration of social media buttons that enable sharing on Facebook or Twitter, you can’t really alter content in any way. You can mention the errors in a post, make a very valid point but then wait for the addition to be made if the writer sees the error and more importantly make the amendments within the article.
Intoloop Kids: Your Child’s Most Memorable Events Come Online
There is one thing that parents love the most when it comes to kids and that's sharing the most memorable moments with everyone they know. The problem is you can take photos of the first step they take, their first giggle, etc but sharing them is a huge problem. Emailing helps, but the task is boring and doesn't really allow proper interaction. A service that lets you share all these moments as a journal is a need of many parents. Enter Intoloop Kids.
Aalto Venture Garage Launches Startup Sauna
Aalto Venture Garage is launching Startup Sauna, which includes a month long tour around the Baltic rim to promote a new kind of startup acceleration program called Startup Sauna. Startup Sauna is direct continuum to the Summer of Startups program as well as the Bootcamp initiatives the venue organised last year. The program has been put in place to help pre-seed startups succeed through better mentorship of serial entrepreneurs as well as investors. What's best, it's open to all startups from the region.
Customized Mobile Maps With Zonear
Many businesses are keen on making tourist and other guides for mobile. Fully customizable, based on peer reviews, suggestions by locals or existing tourist guides - you name it. A new addition to the field is a recently created start-up called Zonear from Tampere, Finland. Rather than bringing an all-encompassing travel guide directly to the consumer, Zonear provides mobile apps with customizable maps for service providers like travel destinations, museums and event organizers. The idea is that for each customer Zonear would create a unique map that would point the end user in the right direction, provide additional information and let them interact with the location or object. The app can be viewed directly from the web or be used offline if it's been downloaded in the browser once. It works across many platforms, can be fully customized for the brand and includes a simple analytics tool. Four years ago another Finnish start-up Whatamap tried to do exactly the same thing, so how is Zonear different?
Reminder: ArcticEvening Tampere, December 2nd!
Just a quick reminder before you run away from your computer to enjoy those after work drinks. We're organising an ArcticEvening in Tampere on the 2nd of December in New Factory Demola, located at Väinö Linnan Aukio 15, 3rd floor. We'll be showcasing a panel with angel investors and also some startup pitches (you can still apply here for a chance to pitch). The show will kick off at 5pm and will continue until 8pm. To take part, register your ticket below.
ArcticEvening Tampere - December 2nd, 2010
On December 2nd, we'll be organising an ArcticEvening in Tampere to get all the entrepreneurially minded people together to talk about angel investing. We'll be putting together a show where we'll have startups pitch (3 startups) at the event and also have a few angel investors at the venue to give quick feedback. We'll also have a panel discussion with the angels to talk about the activity of angel investing in Finland. In this post, you'll be able to register for the event free of charge and also submit your application to the pitching part. We'll be choosing 3 companies from the pool of applicants later on.
Flocking Flockler
Flockler is a new start-up from Tampere, Finland, that offers a Twitter-like online publishing platform with two products: Reporter and Deal Flow. The Reporter tool allows professional or citizen journalists post short news stories that appear in a feed on the newspaper's webpages. Other users can share, 'like' and in the future comment on each story. Savon Sanomat is currently using the tool for its Kiekkoviisaat service where hockey fans post latest sports news. Aamulehti uses Flockler to run its Nettikampa tool where journalists post various 'soft news' content from the web. Flockler's second product, Deal Flow, helps small businesses put an online ad to their local newspaper: the short text also appears in a feed on the paper's webpages.
ArcticEvening Tampere Tomorrow
Tomorrow we'll be having another ArcticEvening event in Tampere. The event will revolve around some interesting startup pitches and a panel with some very interesting industry heavy weights. Last week we went through our procedure to pick three companies available for pitching at the event and the chosen ones are (in random order): Tagregator, Tribe Flame and There Corporation. On the panel we'll have Jussi Harvela, Otto Chrons and Heikki Halme.
You can read more about the event on its own page. Want to come? Sign up now, there are still some tickets available. The show will kick off around 6pm at Demola.
ArcticEvening Tampere taking place November 17th
ArcticStartup will be travelling to Tampere to tap into the entrpreneurial buzz there we've heard so much of. The evening will be an interesting one wrapped around the theme of Networking and Pitching. More specifically, we'll be discussing the different ways entrepreneurs can take advantage networking to grow their business. We'll have some very practical advice from industry heavy weights and local entrepreneurs.
Advant Games Successfully In The Money Gaming Business
I talked to Sami Kuivasaari, one of the people behind a Finnish spin-off startup Advant Games, a little while back about their company and the way they see the money gaming market. Advant Games is a young spin-off company from a joint research project between the Tampere University of Technology, Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation) as well as Veikkaus (the money gaming monopoly of Finland). I titled this post explicitly as successfully, because in 2008 just 2 years after their founding Advant Games turned over close to 400k€ with a 20% profit margin.
More Startup Buzz (And Money) At Mindtrek This Year
Mindtrek is the annual conference for social media, web 2.0 as well as digital media and business in general. In 2008 the conference gathered about 800 people from 32 countries with 150 foreigners attending the conference. ArcticStartup is extremely happy to be participating in this leading conference in its field. We will be helping out with the conference this year, so you'll be able to catch some visibility on our blog as well if you happen to participate. Mindtrek will be organised between September 30th and October 2nd this year.
Why do we like Mindtrek? Simple, the prizes are magnificent and without competition. This year, Mindtrek is hosting its launchpad competition to startups and innovative people with ideas. The main prize is 20 009 € including business sparring, internationalization, growth and financing services provided by Tekes, Finnvera, Technopolis Ventures, Finpro, Diges, Lexia, and Hermia. A lot of help and money to be won through a simple competition. It's not too pricey to participate either - entries are only 150€ per company. You can find more information on the competition on the Mindtrek website and to register, you should follow the instruction over here. The deadline for entries has been extended to August 31st.
ErAce Security Blocks SMS Vulnerability With New Firewall Product
erAce Security Solutions has launched a mobile firewall for preventing SMS attacks on smartphones that could result in an attacker hijacking mobile data connections. The product is called Settings Firewall and it is targeted Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems (more info, PDF).
There has been a lot of discussion on possible SMS vulnerabilities lately. For example, F-Secure has reported the first ever SMS worm, and just end of 2008 there were headlines about the Curse of Silence denial of service attack. It is often deemed as just a matter of time before the first more serious threats appear.
MindTrek 2008 coming up fast
MindTrek Conference 2008 is just around the corner, so if you're a startup make sure to apply to the Startup Launchpad competition if you haven't already. It's worth it.
Registration is open until September 19th. You can register here for the Startup Launchpad and here for the Conference itself. I'll be hosting the competition itself and the jury include Marc Davis from Yahoo! and Sharon C. Ballard to name only a few.
We’re organizing a free bus ride with Culminatum, Sombiz and Floobs to the to the conference leaving from Helsinki on the 8th and coming back on the evening of 9th.
The idea is to rent a bus and take off to Tampere together from Helsinki with a bus full of start-ups. Spend the Oct. 8th and 9th at the Conference and give the start-ups a possibility to pitch at Startup Launchpad competition.
Antti Akonniemi from Kisko Labs is also running an Ignite while we are driving up there. Antti wrote a short intro on what's on offer for the ride up:
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? And what if your stage was an actual bus full of startup entrepreneurs? Fun of karaoke and excitement of Powerpoint combined. Sounds too much like the movie Speed? Introducing Ignite:Mobile. Join ArcticStartup's bus trip to MindTrek and experience the first ever Ignite:Mobile.
Even if you decide to not apply or will not make the cut, you're more than welcome to join us for the bus ride up and for the conference itself. Although for the conference you will need a ticket.
MindTrek prizes for start-ups a positive surprise
We speculated earlier on that this year's MindTrek's Startup Launchpad prizes would be pretty good, and nice they are.The guys at MindTrek have shown that when it comes to getting start-ups on board, Tampere knows what its doing. Here's what they have on offer quote on quote:
The winner elected by the jury will be nominated as the MindTrek Startup of the Year 2008, and given the right to pick up the prize first from the basket. The three prizes are:
- Two tickets for an international conference (max á 1300 €), like Le Web 3 Le Web08 in Paris (December 12th – 13th) December 9th – 10th*
- Supercoaching training by Sharon Ballard
- Technopolis Ventures incubation program (12 months contract, worth 3 000 €) and an opportunity to participate in the Money Talks Forum
In addition, the winner will get two tickets for the MindTrek 2009 conference and one hour face-time with one jury member to discuss about the concept, business model, financing opportunities, markets, etc.
The company nominated as second will select prize after the winner, and the bronze-medallist will get the remaining prize.All companies selected to present their pitches in the conference will be given an opportunity to participate in a half-day pitch training session before the conference.
If the prizes are noteworthy, so it the jury. The jury line up includes Marc Davis from Yahoo!, Sharon C. Ballard, the founding President/CEO of Enable Ventures Inc., Tapio Siik from Nokia Growth Partners, Pekka Pärnänen theHead of Finpro at Silicon Valley and Henri Rantalainen the CEO and Business Development Advisor at Technopolis Ventures Professia.
But as they say there's no such thing as a free lunch and even start-ups have to invest real money sometimes as much as it hurts. There is no real registration fee for the Launchpad competition, but if a start-up is selected it will have to register for the conference to get to pitch and be eligible for the prizes. The registration fee is 75 euro (+VAT) for the Thursday when the actual pitching competiton will take place, and if you want join the whole two days you have to pay 110 euro (+VAT) for a two day ticket, ie Wednesday and Thursday.
To ease the pain a bit, we are co-organizing with Culminatum, Sombiz, Floobs and MindTrek a free bus ride for all the startups to Tampere and back. Regardless of whether you're pitching or not, you're most welcome to join the ride. write me at ville [at] arcticstartup [dot] com if you wanna come and I'll reserve a seat for your team.
You can read more about the competition and fill in the registration for here. Good luck!
*Edit: A correction to The MindTrek website: The first prize that includes two tickets for an international conference (max á 1300 €), should read "like Le Web08 in Paris (December 9th – 10th)", not 'LeWeb3 that was held in Paris last year on December 12th and 13th.
Start-ups taking over MindTrek
As hinted earlier ,we're organizing a trip to MindTrek Conference with Culminatum, Sombiz, Floobs and the guys at MindTrek.
The idea is to rent a bus and take off to Tampere together from Helsinki with a bus full of start-ups. Spend the Oct. 8th and 9th at the Conference and give the start-ups a possibility to pitch at Startup Launchpad competition.
The competition will have a worthwhile set of prizes, which without going into too much detail yet include face-time with some big names in the industry and tickets to one of the most notable Internet Conferences in Europe. We will announce the jury line-up as well as the prizes as soon as they get confirmed.
To enter the Launchpad competition you need to:
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Fill in the online form that you will find on the website (here)
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In the form you will be required to provide basic information about the company and founders, a description of your service/product and why your company should win.
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In addition to this, an optional maximum 2 minutes video uploaded to YouTube (or other server accessible for us) describing the company and the product would be highly appreciated. You can put the link on the form.
- Proposals must be submitted in English.There is no fee for registering your company in the MindTrek Startup Launchpad. If your company is selected, to confirm your participation, you will have to register to the conference. So those who are presenting the startup company must register and pay the registration fee.
- A maximum of 7 start-ups will be carefully selected from the submitted applications, and will demonstrate in front of a panel of expert judges in a room where any conference participant will have access to, on Thursday, October 9th.
The jury as well as the audience may ask questions during the Q&A session which will follow each presentation. The jury will also give feedback after the presentation.
If you're a start-up and you'd like to come along and reserve a place in the bus, first you need to register and then just let me know you want to come along by dropping me a quick mail at ville [at] arcticstartup [dot] com.
There is no fee for registering your company in the MindTrek Startup Launchpad itself. If your company is selected, to confirm your participation, you will have to register to the conference. So those who are presenting the start-up company must register and pay the registration fee, but you do get a 10% off by using STARTMIND-08 code when registering. Naturally, if you do register the bus ride to Tampere and back is free of charge thanks to Tommi at Culminatum.
Startup Launchpad @ Mindtrek, Tampere
Mindtrek 2008, the conference that started off as a multimedia competition a decade ago, is once again gathering in Tampere between 7th and 9th of October. Mindtrek will also be featuring a Startup Launchpad, where a maximum of seven startups will be chosen to present to the audience and a group of judges.
The selection criteria and application procedure can be seen on the Mindtrek Startup Launchpad website. Although it is still unofficial, ArcticStartup, will also be present at the conference one way or another. We've also heard that the prizes will be pretty good, so think seriously about joining.
More on the conference in the future as things progress.
