Oinride

"Smile and deliver!" Borrowed this phrase from Ilmo 😁🙌 — perfect for my last week. Had a few anxious moments with so much to get done, but I kept going and kept smiling. Things I'm particular happy about pushing through: 💪 Nobody Engineering with Ville Ilkkala becoming the winner of the Finnish round of the New Nordics Pitch Competition. After seeing their pitch at Norrsken Accelerator Demo Day and hearing VCs' excitement at the after party, I knew they had to compete — they’re building real momentum. A friendly nudge (and a smile) later, they were in… and the rest is history! 💪 A unique and positive event at Platform6, beautifully brought to life by Santeri Simonen and his team — with a Viking theme! (And yes, all the Viking swords, axes, etc., were real, straight from Middle Ages reenactments by Santeri’s uncle.) Add in the smoke machine, furs, lights, and impeccable tech support, and the atmosphere was electric. Huge shoutout to the team — Abigel, Akseli, Leila, all the volunteers, and partners — who made it a success with over 115 people attending. And, of course, Olga’s ballet performance… probably our new trademark! 💪 For the 1st time ever - €15,000 prize pool worth of startup-focused services - thank you HubSpot and Ragini, EMU Growth Partners and Sauli, Bob W. , Kiki and Niko, 46elks, Niina and Jason, Slush and Sami. Let's do it again! 💪 For the 1st time ever, a surprise prize from Draper University - full and partial scholarships to attend their entrepreneurship program in Silicon Valley with the likes of Elon Musk as a speaker. Thank you so so much, Daniela, for this generous prize and the trust! Finally, I've managed to marry my previous professional activities (that led to meeting Tim Draper in person several times) with Startup.Tampere ones. And yes, you got it right, all the finalists of New Nordics Pitch Competition Finland Final have been accepted to the programme! Nobody Engineering and Ville, Oinride and Ahmed, SeeTrue Technologies and Roman have received FULL scholarships  covering program fees, accommodation in San Mateo (San Francisco Peninsula), activities, and events, valued at $12,000 each. AND Mimiqit and Zachary, Dashboa and Tuomas, Dora and Max, Siren Anti-Cheat and Alper , Tabnomous and Özgün will only need to contribute $4,000 to participate. I guess that’s my mic drop moment 😂 — but no, the night kept rolling! I took over as karaoke host, giving everyone that little nudge to get on stage and sing their hearts out. Then we moved to Ravintola Daisy for after-work drinks, courtesy of the awesome Nordea Startup and Growth team (Teija and Riia 💛 ). The place filled up fast, conversations kept flowing, and, yes, we smiled a lot and delivered. Because business conversations can be fun too — it’s all about human connections, after all. 🙌 P.S. Some useful links I will put the 1st comment - check them out!

🎉 Congratulations to Nobody Engineering, winner of the Finnish round of the New Nordics Pitch Competition by Silicon Vikings 2024! 🎉 For the 3rd consecutive year, a Tampere-based startup from Platform6 has claimed the top spot and will represent Finland at the Grand Final on November 19th at Epicenter in Helsinki during Slush week, competing against top startups from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and the Baltics: Knittable (Iceland) – Nanna Einarsdóttir, CEO & Founder GaltTec (Estonia/Baltics) – Laura Elise Arvisto, Co-Founder Kaspar A.I.  (Denmark) – Esbern Torgard Kaspersen, Co-Founder & CTO Bú Composite (Norway) – Jakub Wijata, Co-Founder Nobody Engineering (Finland) – Ville Ilkkala, CEO & Co-Founder Vitala (Sweden) – Lisa Aasa, Co-Founder & COO This year’s competition included impressive startups from across Finland, including Dashboa, Dora Health Ltd, Oinride, SeeTrue Technologies, Siren Anti-Cheat, Tabnomous, and Mimiqit. Special congratulations to Mimiqit, winner of the Talk the Walk award sponsored by Infobip, with €5,000 in products and credits. As the Finnish winner, Nobody Engineering received a prize pool worth €15,000 - services from EMU Growth Partners, HubSpot For Startups credits and services, 46elks API credits, 1 night stay for two at Bob W. and a startup ticket to Slush from Startup.Tampere. In addition to this, Draper University has awarded full scholarships to Nobody Engineering, Oinride, and SeeTrue Technologies for its intensive Silicon Valley entrepreneurship program. 🌉  Founded by Tim Draper, a legendary venture capitalist, Draper University has become a global hub for entrepreneurial talent, with its program structured to fast-track startups’ growth in the heart of Silicon Valley. Notable speakers include, for example, Elon Musk. Tim Draper is one of the most influential investors in tech, having funded giants like Baidu, Inc., Tesla, SpaceX, Skype, Twitch, Hotmail, Robinhood, and 15 other unicorns from their seed stage. The selected Finnish startups have received a full scholarship covering program fees, accommodation, activities, and events, valued at $12,000 each, to attend the program. All other Finnish finalists were offered partial scholarships. You can find more information in the press-release together with the Grand Final registration page - 1st comment blow! See you in Helsinki in a few weeks!

Our Christopher Mills was just yesterday at the Silicon Vikings pitch competition at Platform6, Tampere, and an exciting one at that including backflip pitching and a hacked anti-cheat pitch! 👏 Stealing the show and prizes deservedly was Nobody Engineering, with a powerful pitch focused on the impact potential of a hardware enabled SaaS IDL (independant data layer) for existing buildings - 6 % reduction in global emissions!   Big thanks to Silicon Vikings and Platform6 Startup House for putting together such a good event, with 8 exciting pitches grilled by a hard hitting jury: Nobody Engineering - Focusing on the impact of an Independent Data Layer (IDL) for existing buildings, with a potential to reduce global emissions by 6%. Yes thats not a typo, 6 %! Mimiqit - Amazing backflip on stage and great app Siren Anti-Cheat - The war between cheaters and honest gamers rages on, and siren has the solution Dora Health Ltd - Dogs need oura rings too! Oinride - The mining world hasn't seen much innovation lately, Oinride is on a mission to fix that SeeTrue Technologies - Eyeball tracking via digital twin for the AR era Tabnomous - Slow and steady wins for autonomous forklifts Dashboa - AI driven optimization platform for e-commerce stores with 500 - 15000 products A special shout-out to some key people who made the conversations after the event memorable: Kaarle Wirta, Alexandra Santos, Amir Bathaei and Jussi Niemioja. Till next time! #PitchCompetition #SiliconVikings

The wait is over, everyone! The next batch for ESCALTECH has been selected in Finland! (in alphabetical order): ByteTyde Cero Hero Commu App Hei Dingo IKIGAIA Lionlingo.com Mesensei Not Your Average Swan Oinride BrainBites SAHA Training SmoothTeam Virtual Dawn   We're set and ready to make a roadmap in the coming days during a kickoff session facilitated by Ronny Eriksson and New Nordic Way. Companies will also have access to mentoring support and various trainings, events, and workshops that will support them in scaling up. We are very excited to collaborate with this group of companies and can’t wait for some cross-collaboration opportunities with our Estonian and Latvian counterparts! DIMECC Oy, ITL Estonia, Latvian IT Cluster / DIH, Interreg Central Baltic Programme