30 Oct ? HOT Oct Nordic/Baltic Tech News, Events and Opportunities
Hello all and Welcome to our October newsletter…
? It’s great to be spending the end of the year buzzing from one “real life” event to another again, after nearly two years of restrictions – Local Meetups > Demo Days > Tech Weeks > Web Summit > Slush – a lot is happening in Q4 in our tech world, and depending on where you might be reading this, you could be feeling the warm glow of an autumn fire (Gothenburg Tech Week) or the warm sun on your face (Web Summit, Lisbon). One thing is for sure though, wherever you are, you are part of a greater tech ecosystem – the global tech ecosystem.
“What makes a great tech ecosystem?” was the focus for our recent panel event at Gothenburg Tech Week (more below) and it opened up a lot of great ideas and discussion points. One stood out: Do we think too small including when trying to build an ecosystem? Most are built around cities or “Hubs” – but surely we should be thinking bigger? We certainly think so. You would expect that, wouldn’t you?
Tech Nordic Advocates unites eight countries across the Nordics and Baltics, and as part of Global Tech Advocates, we unite across the globe – 22 global tech hubs and 22.000 tech leaders to be precise. We truly believe that a thriving tech ecosystem is not confined by country borders – technology breaks them down – and needs to be truly inclusive and diverse. The work we do reflects these values, and will continue to do so. Let’s continue to work together to cement the Nordics/Baltics as a global tech hub within a global tech ecosystem, to help you all grow and scale, including internationally with equal access to capital, talent and know-how – no matter who or where you are.
With all that in mind, we have a lot of news, opportunities and events to share, so let’s get straight to it …
“WOMEN IN TECH” COMMUNITY. LATEST NEWS…
Congratulations on “Graduating”!! ? – To the amazing female tech founders and business leaders from Cohort 2 of our “Women in Tech” International Mentoring Programme in Denmark (see who they are here) who have just completed the Programme including ‘kick-ass’ business/growth plans to help them take their tech businesses to the next level. Reading them has been mind blowing – from health/med tech to gaming, a new music streaming platform for punk, innovative safety devices for women, fintech, travel, fashion.. you name it.. all industry sectors represented. Amazing to see these ‘caterpillars turn into butterflies’. Goes to show what a little help from the right programme and friends (mentors, experts, investors, peers, networks, events) can achieve. Energy levels have been high and the commitment and effort has led to great things, incl. new companies, co-founders and international board members, investment, clients and partnerships with large tech companies such as AWS. Congrats to them all incl. to Nathalie Feldman, CEO & founder of Salvatio Push and Josephine Piplits, CEO & Founder of TripDoodler for SDG Award nominations and to Inga Stein Burgaard, CEO & founder of Seek & See for being selected to the Wonderful Copenhagen Travel Lab Accelerator most recently. And of course, we cannot forget to congratulate once again Sara Schjemte Madsen on the birth of her baby during the programme – officially TNA’s youngest tech entrepreneur! Takes a woman – new tech business and baby at once!
And don’t forget that Programme mentees are now part of a lifelong and rapidly growing international tech community to support them as their businesses grow. Thank you, once again to our 250+ mentors, experts, investors and partners for their hard work and support for our mentees and Programme.
This is just the beginning because….
LAUNCHING 2022: EUROPE’S FIRST INTERNATIONAL ACCELERATOR FOR HIGH-GROWTH TECH COMPANIES LED BY WOMEN – APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN
Based on the success of Module 1 – our international mentoring programme for female tech founders (see above), we’re delighted that our partners (see image) have now granted us additional funding to launch Module 2: Europe’s first international Accelerator Programme for high-growth tech companies led by women and Module 3: new Umbrella Venture Fund Organisation of national and international investors committed to investing in female tech founders/tech companies led by women in 2022.
We’re putting the finishing touches to Modules 2 and 3 as we speak. As so many of you have asked about how you can join Module 2: the international accelerator, we have opened up for applications now. Learn more and apply here. Deadline is 15 December 2021. Launch event 28 January 2022 (details to follow). Cohort 1 starts 31 January 2022.
We’re so excited to put more firepower behind high growth tech businesses, led by women. Thank you to our Partners (image below) for making it possible.
While on the subject of amazing women in tech, did you see that our CEO and Founder, Jeanette Carlsson is a finalist in the Nordic Women in Tech Awards in the category of “Women in Tech – Advocate of the year“.
Congratulations also to Ida Bjerga – Managing Director & Co-founder of Noise Studio, and mentee on Cohort 3 of our Women in Tech, International Mentoring Programme, for being a finalist in the category of Entrepreneur of the Year.
We’re really looking forward to meeting the other finalists at the ‘Awards’ ceremony at KPMG Denmark on 11th November.
NEWS FROM…SWEDEN
Our COO for Sweden, Barry O’Brien recently had the pleasure of hosting Antonio Perea Santiesteban – the Counsellor for Trade and Economic Affairs, from the Embassy of Mexico to Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania. During the meeting they discussed the tech scene in Mexico, how the regions could collaborate more by bringing highly skilled Mexican tech talent to the Nordics and Baltics, and why Mexico could be the next hotspot for hiring remote dev teams.
Feel free to reach out to Antonio if you are interested to learn more about Mexico as a tech hub and opportunities there.
To meet Barry in Stockholm, discuss investment scouting, membership or strategic partnerships, reach out to him via email, here.
As partners of Gothenburg Tech Week this year, we collaborated to run a great panel event on an area that we know a thing or two about – “What makes a great tech ecosystem?”. Our CEO and founder Jeanette Carlsson, shared expert insights from helping to build the London, Nordic and Baltic, EU and global tech ecosystems.
So many key takeaways from the pan-Nordic/Baltic panel, which also featured Lars Bern (Sweden), Kai Isand (Estonia), Björn Lapakko (Norway) and moderated by Elina Åkerlind, e.g. that the best ecosystems are made of people with the right skills and real desire to collaborate, partnerships between Academia + Public Sector + Private Sector and that the public sector plays a key role in building the infrastructure – from high speed broadband to transport – tech innovators and leaders need to grow strong tech businesses and ecosystems, and how Covid has taught us new ways of working using technology, which may have lasting effects for how we work going forward, including enabling less well-known regions to come to the fore AND that we in the Nordics/Baltics must learn to shout much louder about our successes if we really want to attract global attention and investors . We have a lot to shout about as far as tech is concerned – so let’s tell the world what we’re really made of!
Visit our website to read more about how we can help you develop your tech ecosystem.
NEWS FROM…FINLAND
The vision is to “Invest the funds in early-stage companies based in the Nordic and Baltic countries and leverage rapidly developing technologies to radically renew the food system – from the soil to the orbit and from new sources of protein to better ways of eating.””The anchor investor for the fund is government-owned Business Finland VC, for which the €20M investment is the largest commitment to a single VC fund this far.” Read more here.
Our lovely new home in Helsinki, Epicenter, are filling up their calendar with great events (inc; Wine tasting – yes please!) – and nothing is more important than attracting and retaining talent – it’s hard to drive a car with no wheels, right? So, on November 3rd you can join them for a breakfast seminar on “Employer Branding” with Employer Branding Agency Instar and their CEO Kersti Vannas.
Learn to take a strategic and data-oriented approach to employer branding and equip yourself with the latest knowledge in EB through practical customer cases. Read more and sign up here.
(Unicorn) STARTUP OF THE MONTH!
Aiven Achieves $2B Unicorn Valuation with its Series C Extension
Congratulations to everyone at Aiven, a Finnish startup that helps companies combine various open source technologies with public cloud infrastructure resources – it’s now a unicorn!.” Aiven snags $60M investment on $2B valuation, up from $800M in March”. Read more on the investment here.
NEWS FROM…DENMARK
2150 VC hits $312M for fund to build and run cities greener, and emit vastly less CO2.
Huge congratulations to our friend, advisor, and “Women in Tech” programme mentor, Nicole LeBlanc, and all her colleagues at 2150 for closing an amazing fund that will help tackle climate change through their investments in cleaner building and heating materials.2150 Partner Christian Hernandez said: “…we raised one of the largest climate tech funds in Europe. And it came from, big money, like, Credit Suisse clients of Goldman Sachs, and some of the world’s largest sovereign funds.”
Exciting times!
Read more about the fund and their plans for future investments here.
NEWS FROM…NORWAY
There’s a great new addition to the Norwegian Tech Scene to share –
Runway FBU.
At Fornebu, Norway, they are building a cutting edge tech hub that will host and support tech entrepreneurs. They are also ready to invest capital from their VC fund today in pre-seed, seed and follow-ons. Ticket sizes will vary from $100K to up to $2M-$3M as follow-up commitment to the most promising startups. With a team experienced in investing and supporting more than 200 tech startups over the last decades, they understand the challenges of a tech startup and how to facilitate and support successful entrepreneurs throughout your journey. Read more and connect with the team here.
NEWS FROM THE BALTICS
What we can learn from Estonia’s digital connectivity…
This interesting article from Business Desk hits home. As a team that have lived & worked in the UK, we often say the UK needs an easy to use digital ID app, as we have become used to in the Nordics/ Baltics for signing and buying stuff! This article explains the benefits and how Estonia are sharing their expertise…
UPCOMING EVENTS
ventureLAB Virtual Int. Tech Demo Day, Canada – Wed 3 November 10.30 EST/16.30 CET
On Wednesday, 3 November, our Canadian friends at @ventureLAB are hosting a virtual International Tech Demo Day. Great opportunity for you all/our investor community to hear pitches from leading companies with a focus on receiving international funding from ventureLAB’s Capital Investment Program (CIP) – designed to help companies prepare for a angel or seed-stage rounds. After each round of pitches, attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and express an interest in connecting. Check out the companies pitching here.
Please register via the Zoom link here, and a Google Calendar invite will follow shortly. See you there!
Singapore FinTech Festival, 8-12 Nov, Singapore
Singapore FinTech Festival returns on 8-12 Nov with a week-long celebration of FinTech. Attended by 60,000 participants from 160 countries in 2020, this year’s event will foster an open dialogue between the public and private sector to advance FinTech in the digital economy. SFF 2021 will take place with a hybrid format, bringing together a digital platform with a flagship event in Singapore, as well as a distributed network of World FinTech Festival events in key FinTech hubs. Join us at the world’s largest FinTech Festival and forge business partnerships, network with peers and hear from industry leaders! Tech Nordic Advocates (TNA) members enjoy 20% off digital tickets (applicable to existing ticket rates). Register now.
Access to (International) Growth Finance, 25th Nov, 12.30-15.30, Epicenter, Stockholm
Are you a growth stage tech company raising capital to finance your scaleup/international expansion OR an investor looking to meet investment-ready Swedish scaleups?
DO NOT miss this LIVE event in partnership with Connect Sverige and the Microsoft Reactor at our Stockholm home: Epicenter, Stockholm, on Thursday 25 November 12.30 to 15.30. Registration and the agenda is here. Follow our social media for more updates.
Going to Slush, Helsinki, 1-2 December?
Want to hear from and talk to Tech Nordic Advocates, our Finnish and global partners, incl. Helsinki Business Hub, NewCo Helsinki, Magnusson, London Stock Exchange, KPMGand Global Tech Advocates HOW we’re helping amazing female innovators launch, grow and scale tech businesses? Then DON’T MISS our LIVE event (in front of Slush main conference) 1 December 13.00 (EEST) – info and how to secure your place below.
How to help female founders launch, grow and scale tech businesses, 1 Dec, 13.00 (EEST) Slush
HURRY UP and REGISTER HERE
PLEASE NOTE: you do NOT need to have a Slush ticket to attend. The Helsinki Partners Lounge is located just outside the main conference hall. This is a very popular event attended by all in the ecosystem from female founders to (all gender) investors and ecosystem partners. We have limited tickets, allocated on a first come, first serve basis. We love you all BUT have to say: people who register and ‘no show’ will go on ‘black list’ for next time, as you will thereby prevent someone else from joining. See you in Helsinki 1 December !
IMPORTANT INFO FROM OUR PARTNERS TO SUPPORT YOUR GROWTH
Netcompany is a pure-play IT services company delivering business-critical strategic IT projects that accelerate customers’ digital transformation through digital platforms, core systems and infrastructure services.
Recently rising up to 7th place on the Universum list of Denmark’s Most Attractive Employers for IT Professionals, Netcompany offers vacancies in many areas of IT, and in many countries across the nordics, and globally.
Are you ready to take on greater responsibility and develop your career at Netcompany? Read more here.
In Magnusson‘s latest article that was published by the tech news outlet GTA Connects, Corporate M&A Partner, Nikolaj Juhl Hansen explains how investment in the EU tech-sector might be impacted by new rules for the screening of foreign investors. “On 1 September 2021 a new Danish FDI screening law came into effect, likely the most robust and restrictive regime yet introduced across the EU.” You can read Nikolaj’s full article on the topic here and learn how Magnusson can support youhere??
Interested to understand more about Crypto and Blockchain?
When we say “NFT” to you – do you know what we are talking about? Bored Apes, CryptoPunks, VeVe and “The first Tweet” are all related to this new blockchain art and community phenomenon, and TNA member 4ire Labs are our go-to experts.
Recently, they launched their latest tech service – NFT Marketplace Development and also offer many clear articles about crypto, NFT’s, and blockchain development PLUS expert guides that cover a lot on these new and fascinating technologies.
Read their latest articles here and learn more about how they can help you, by getting in touch here??
TNA TALKS THIS MONTH…
Two new episodes this month on the topic of Sustainability, featuringevolvT and Zesta, discussing many things including – How do brands and leaders/boards prepare AND execute their ESG Strategy?
In Episode 7, you can learn all about “Sustainability in Logistics” where we cover issues in the current logistics market, challenges for couriers, growth opportunities, models for measuring impact and climate effects …plans for 2022 + lots more.
In Episode 8 we dive deep in to ESG strategy – actions that Boards can take to improve the climate impact of their business, attract and retain talent, and why annual reports are not enough to prove the great work that many companies are actually doing – and the progress that is being made.
Watch the interview here.
Don’t forget to watch previous episodes over on our YouTube Channel, featuring insights on starting and growing a tech company, securing investment, IPO’s and international expansion.
IN THE PRESS
We are really proud of all the great coverage we are getting every month now, it’s important to spread the word on what we are achieving with our great community, here across the nordic and baltics. Check out the latest media attention we’ve received…
GTA Connects
In thi
s article from GTA Connects, you can hear more about our new partnership with the London Stock Exchange, and how we will continue to work together across the Nordics in the coming years. “With the London Stock Exchange joining Tech Nordic Advocates’ (TNA) growing network, businesses in the region have greater access to investment possibilities, while for the former it provides a helping hand in its search for new IPOs.”
Nordic Business Magazine
The latest issue of Nordic Business Magazine is out now and we feature across 5 pages! Our founder & CEO Jeanette Carlsson, COO for Sweden, Barry O’Brien, and GTA Founder Russ Shaw, all contribute to an indepth article about our work across the region, supporting “Women in Tech” and how “Strength in numbers pushes the Nordic tech agenda”.
Grab a coffee and read our article, plus all of the other great content in this edition.
For all the latest media articles about us and our partners, make sure to visit our blog.
Computer Weekly
More great coverage of our “Women in Tech” Programme in Denmark and the value it brings to not only Denmark, but the wider tech community.
Our Copenhagen City Hall event, to announce our 2022 Accelerator, features in the article, with VIP opinion – “It is completely skewed that we have so few female entrepreneurs in Denmark” said Cecilia Lonning-Skovgaard, Mayor of Copenhagen, during the event. Read the full article here.
Here’s another great quote from the article… “I look forward to continuing to work with TNA…(as) over 50% of our investor base is international and the public capital markets in London cater to companies of all sizes and stages” says Tamara Gehring, Head of Western Europe and Nordics, Primary Capital Markets. Read the full article here.
FROM US…. RAISING CAPITAL TO SUPPORT YOUR GROWTH?
? Did you know we offer a Startup/Investor Scouting Programme, connecting fundraising startups/scaleups with suitable investorsfrom our network? If you’re a startup/scaleup raising funds, get in touch here.
If you’re an investor looking for deal flow, please email us for an introduction.
OR COULD YOU DO WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM A FRIEND? ? Could a Mentor help you?Did you know that we offer a global mentoring programme matching our Advocates with mentors across the globe from our Global Tech Advocates network, spanning over 20 tech hubs globally? Join today (Solo membership or Business Membership) and get access to top quality mentors across all continents, who can help accelerate your growth.
GLOBAL TECH ADVOCATES (GTA) NEWS
Global Tech Advocates is now an Associated Organization for the Coldplay Music of the Spheres World Tour: Sustainability – Dig deeper on how a sustainable tour is achieved, and how Coldplay will pull it off here.
Great news from the GTA team… “There are now three resource hubs at your disposal to provide you with insights, resources, information and examples of startups and organisations doing great work across our Advocates community.
With COP26 fast approaching, we encourage you to visit the Tech for Net Zero Resource Hub, where they continue to add content on interesting startups and scaleups in this space.
We are also delighted to share the new TLA Immigration Resource Hub, providing useful information on immigration and visas for working in the UK.
There is also a third resource hub – the TLA Education Resource Hub that focuses on digital skills, apprenticeships and edtech. Humble brag – Further Education News in the UK, has called it the “most comprehensive portal for digital skills”.
Remember: Tech Nordic Advocates is the Nordic/Baltic arm of Global Tech Advocates (GTA) – the world’s only global tech/startup ecosystem spanning 22 global tech hubs.
Did you know we have our own global tech news hub? Check out GTA Connects
Launching soon:
The next Global Tech Advocates group – Tech South West England Advocates – will soft launch at the Institute of Directors Bristol event on 10th November (formal launch in Q1 2022); the group will be led by Richard Lowe.
If you are interested to expand from the Nordics and Baltics, into the UK, or any other 20+ places globally in our Tech London Advocates & Global Tech Advocates network, reach out to us at Tech Nordic Advocates for an intro.