Goosmed Targets Medical Communication With Mobile And Web Solution
The focus of Helsinki-based Goosmed is to improve communication in the medical field by building a closed community for health care professionals.
Initially, the company was named Goosevent; founded in 2008 to develop the most suitable tools to share and gather documents for persons’ and community events. The founders have been working in the communication field ever since, now focusing on the growing medical market.
Kiosked Develops Mobile App With Tekes Tempo
Kiosked is on a mission to turn any sort of visual or social elements into branded webshops, and with it they're on a mission to connect brands directly to consumers through any sort of media. Their service allows anyone to "kiosk" images and videos with products (or whatever content they like) by putting a flash or HTML5 wrapper around the image. When a user hovers over the content, they can find out more information about the product, or buy it right there in the image or video.
Rather than a single solution, the company sees themselves as a platform on which others can build. Their new mobile app created with help from Tekes Tempo is one example of the products that can be built off of their soon-too-be released API toolkit. The app features campaigns from brands, who are crowdsouring the best photos and images of their product in action. The Kiosked app allows users to take and upload digital content, which can be automatically or manually Kiosked into these campaigns.
Kapu Toys Releases "Digital Toy Box" Kapu Forest
Helsinki-based Kapu Toys has released their first title, Kapu Forest on iOS. Kapu Forest is aimed at younger folks aged 1-4+, and they're staying true to their name in the sense that they're trying to be a digital toy box, rather than a collection of games.
The company itself is the brainchild of five international creatives from the wold of digital design, development, and planning. The idea for Kapu Toys arose in 2011 when the founders noticed that their own children had discovered the use of touch-screen devices, and were mimicking their actions. After more research and discovery, they noticed that many smartphone apps didn’t succeed in providing suitable content for kids.
Tekes Tempo The Right Pace For Tellyo
A somewhat new initiative coming out of Tekes is Tekes Tempo, a program designed to put "feedback into practice" as we called it. In their own worlds, they're a market-oriented mobile services project designed to encourage growth-seeking companies to quickly reach the top of their field.
In 2011, 16 projects were funded with the average amount of funding for each project was just over EUR 43,000. Tempo is designed to cut through the bureaucracy so companies can quickly test out ideas on the market; so far the average processing time has been 33 days.
One company funded through Tekes Tempo this year has been Tellyo, a Startup Sauna Fall 2011 participant that is turning your phone into a personal remote controller that works with existing TVs. We were lucky to have Tekes suggest Tellyo for interview, the company is doing some really interesting stuff at the moment.
Tekes And The Companies That Don't Make It: The Floobs Story
Clearly not every start-up makes it, and in this sponsored series for Tekes we thought it would be good to also look at a "failure story" of a company that was previously on Tekes financing. We got the chance to speak with Kai Lemmetty, previously from Floobs, about his experiences with Tekes funding.
Floobs was a live video streaming service for sports clubs and bands, allowing users to record and stream video from mobile phones and supported video cameras. The company was started in 2007 before mobile live-streaming was even on the radar, and could be somewhat compared to what Bambuser is today.
Spending Your Tekes Financing
Before applying for Tekes financing, you need to know how Tekes' money can be used. When you apply for financing, you will meet with your Tekes representative to come up with your own spending plan, which will dictate what you're allowed to spend Tekes' money on. It's been described by the entrepreneurs I've talked to as a flexible enough system as long as you confirm new expenses not included in your plan with your Tekes representative before spending any money. Last month, Elina Arpponen gave an example of not including travel costs in her original plan, but luckily she was able to re-allocate expenses with just an email to her representative.
As mentioned earlier in this series, Tekes doesn't give you money upfront to spend. Tekes reimburses entrepreneurs' receipts that stick to the funding plan laid out with their Tekes representative. But generally speaking, Tekes money can be used for any costs associated to research, development, and innovation activities. These include costs like:
Getting Started With Tekes Financing
With the new year right around the corner, I'm sure many ArcticStartup readers have it in their mind to finally start a company from that business idea they have knocking around in their head. If you're in Finland, you may find help getting off the ground with funding from Tekes, the "Finnish funding agency for technology and innovation." Getting the funding process started with Tekes is fairly straightforward. The basic steps are to first be prepared to answer basics about your company's plans, to send in a sounding form to make contact and discuss more about your company, and then to prepare the actual application.
Before submitting anything to Tekes, take a second to familiarize yourself with is a list of test questions your Tekes contact person will likely ask after you submit your application. I'm sure you've seen these Due Diligence questions before, but its good to solidify your answers to questions like "Who are your potential customers," early in the stage where your company is applying for Tekes financing.
Jarkko Jokirinta From Liilak Talks To Us About Tekes' Payment Model
Our coverage of Liilak about a month ago provides a good picture of the idea crowdsourcing service, but after talking to CEO Jarkko Jokirinta as part of a series of posts on behalf of Tekes, we learned more about the next layer they're placing on top of that service. "We aim to be the de facto link between people and businesses all around the world," says Jokirinta. "When anyone has a praise or an idea about a product they use every day or business they somehow are in connection with, all they need to do is open Liilak and share their thoughts."
In this way, they're moving towards more of a combination of Twitter, Foursquare, and a feedback system. Through each other's praises and by following other people and their suggestions Liilak allows people to learn what is buzzing. "We empower the crowd to think of better ways of doing things and create enough buzz to get the Businesses to listen."
Playmysong Getting Traction In US With Tekes
For the first of a series of posts we're doing in cooperation with Tekes Tempo, I had the opportunity to talk with Rami Korhonen of Playmysong about his financing through Tekes. If you're unfamiliar with Tekes Tempo, you may find a past article we did helpful as some background. In general, Tempo's goal is to quickly test products out on the market by providing financing as quickly as possible-- their aim is to provide financing within one month of a startup's application. The program's goal not necessarily to develop a finished product, but rather to gain more knowledge of markets and users.
But back to Rami and Playmysong. We've covered PlaymySong in the past, but if you haven't heard about them, Playmysong is a social jukebox app that lets you control the background music you hear when you're out at a bar, diner, or similar location. The new version of their iPhone app released last week shows your Facebook photo in the upcoming playlist, and allows you also host your own social stereo on your iPhone.
