The main speaker of the event, the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin highlighted the importance of governments creating an environment that cultivates innovation.
Finnish parliament has an agreement to use up to 4% of Finland’s GDP for research and development, and innovation. The partnerships between the private and public sectors make it possible to gain Finland’s R&D target. Sanna Marin mentioned that if all European countries did the same, Europe would win the global race.
Other Slush speakers spoke from the startup side why the Nordics are a great region for startups. Slush welcomed multiple American investors who wanted to invest in Nordic innovations.
“We used to go to Silicon Valley when we wanted to grow startups. You don’t have to be in Silicon Valley anymore to collaborate and innovate. Covid accelerated global collaboration,” said Ev Williams, the CEO of Medium, partner at Obvious Ventures and co-founder of Twitter.
Nordic startup founders Ilkka Paananen, CEO and Co-founder of Supercell, Josefine Landgard, Founder and CEO of Mantle, and Sophia Bendz, General Partner at Cherry Ventures, spoke in a panel titled “Nordic Leadership: Learnings from Spotify, Supercell and Kry."
They spoke about the secret sauce Nordic startups and the region has, and also mentioned how people used to go to Silicon Valley, now they come to Nordics.
Sophia Benz spoke about the importance of building startup-friendly ecosystems. People used to be upset because of the high taxes in the Nordics, but now people really appreciate the high level social structures, the feeling of safety that it brings, and the ecosystem that supports innovation. The governmental support is seen good for innovation.
“We trust the government and the ecosystem to support us in the Nordics. The trust in the society helps for psychological safety,” said Sophia Benz.
But the panelist also mentioned a need for more governmental help - for example getting visas and work permits etc. faster to allow hiring foreign talent.
Nordic countries have the most mission-led startups, most likely because we have high level of life security and societal safety here. We can focus on big problems, instead of just thinking how to live paycheck to paycheck.
There is a new vertical of impact startups that are changing the world coming from the Nordic countries. Many of these startups are lead by women like Josefin Landgård, the founder and CEO of Mantle, a Swedish cannabeauty company.
Another example of world-changing startups is RELEX Solutions, a supply chain & retail planning platform that makes sure that there is always the right amount of products on the grocery store shelves eliminating food waste due overstocking, and maximizing profits by having enough stock.
The co-fouder Johanna Småroos mentioned that the ecological impact for the world comes as a side-product, and she, like many of the other founders at Slush, calls for solving concrete problems that need solutions.
RELEX Solutions closed down a €500M funding round led by Blackstone Growth earlier this year. It is the largest funding round ever raised in Finland. Many startups at Slush were seeking the funding, and looked for the successful founders for the tips how to raise funds.
Some questioned the need even for raising funds in early stage, especially since it is increasingly more challenging in today’s economic climate than it was just a few years ago.
Even Johanna Småroos mentioned that they bootstrapped for over 10 years before raising money for RELEX Solutions.
“It would have taken as much time to try to get funding than it took to solve problems and talk to customers. We chose to solve problems. It gave us freedom to build what we wanted,” Johanna Småroos said.
Most founders still disagreed, knowing that the massive growth is only possible with the help of investors. But perhaps they just would not last for ten years.
We got new insights at Slush, connected with investors, startup founders, and maybe sung a little karaoke too. Above all, we are happy to have the vibrant startup ecosystem here in the Nordics, and events like Slush.
More about Tumplate
We are a SaaS startup that helps to scale marketing content production. With a click of a button, marketing content - even animated videos - are ready to be published in various sizes for all digital channels. Our customers include Posti, Kiinteistömaailma and Kalevala Jewelry.
We’ve had several wins this past year since the last Slush.
- Tumplate got a new CEO and a new CMO.
- We raised funding from a US-based investor in Q2 and that helped us to focus on product development.
- We’ve grown our turnover by 64.4% and MRR by 50% in 2022.
We are heading to 2023 with a plan to start the next fundraising round to help us scale, and to continue growing our US sales.
