In this podcast, I used NotebookLM to summarize the live event on YouTube (I just dropped the link to the YouTube in NotebookLM). You can also find the whole clip on the event's webpage. The entire recording is below. I used NotebookLM to reduce bias caused by who was or is performing. My analysis of the companies at the end of this blog post, but I don’t want that to affect your judgment before you first listen to the podcast.
Some of the presenters were native English speakers, and others were not. Interestingly, no CEO was pitching. It felt like they hadn’t received guidance on a standard pitching structure, like Y-combinator demo days, but all were above average in content, and none were off-point in terms of a startup pitch. They were all just a bit different, following different structures.
I visited the event myself and sat with Sebastian (as mentioned in Just Products #3), who’s building something new. When it’s ready, maybe we can talk about it. Nonetheless, my takeaways from the startups and the event;
Headlines:
Who’s on top of the Finnish grassroots scene?
My take on the 365 showcase companies.
Who’s on top of the Finnish grassroots scene?
Only a few investors are present, or relatively few. I don’t think most Funds in the local scene were even represented. It makes you wonder who’s on top of what happens “in the weeds” of the Finnish startup scene. Based on a list given to the local and national media, YLE, by the “heavy hitter” VCs in the scene, the list may be relevant for foreign investors who know nothing about Finland. Still, for anyone in the scene, you’d expect more, as accurately pointed out on LinkedIn by the local journalist Elina Lappalainen here, who’s been trying to cover the Finnish startup scene for the past decade.
Elina has recently started a new podcast, but as it’s in Finnish and there aren’t enough listeners for startup-specific media, it must cover economics more widely.
However, the local scene has never regarded Elina as an insider, and her employer does not allow her to cover startup news specifically. One year, she tried to get interviews with speakers coming to Slush, and none agreed. This is not to discredit her work; she is your go-to person if you want to get your story to a Finnish audience, but she is not the person who’ll be on top of the scene at any given time.
Arguably, it should be startup ministers Jyri Engeström and Timo Ahopelto, who are also the initiators behind The Finnish Startup Community (FSC) and have been covered multiple times in Just Thoughts.
However, FSC has three problems regarding being on top of the “grassroots.” Firstly, it is a lobbying entity towards politicians, diverting its attention from grassroots activities. It does not have a very inspiring mission for world-conquering founders to be a part of. Secondly, it hasn’t historically been very inclusive towards foreigners, even if they actively advocate for highly skilled foreigners to move to Finland. In my mind, “skilled foreigners” include foreign founders, investors, and VCs operating in Finland, not just talent to be hired. It’s operated by people who are VCs or politically oriented. Creating grassroots activities with these components at play works against them.
Should it be Timo and Jyri as individuals? Or are other VCs in the scene? They can arguably rely on the fact that all deal flow will come through their funds sooner or later, as there aren’t other investors IN EUROPE who have managed to invest in three decacorns (Wolt, Supercell, and Oura, who will become one). However, even if they could be on top of the scene, they are bound by the very nature of VC investing; usually, only one investment returns the fund, and why would they cover news outside their portfolio? There are no incentives for them to divert their attention to cover everything. They should collaborate with other entities to do that. With this argument, we rule out all local VCs as the ones who should cover the entire scene except for one, TESI, The Finnish Industry Investments.
Based on a recent strategy draft, TESI would double its investment resources to over 2 Billion, assets that tower over all local funds combined—the implications the startup ministers discuss in the episode linked above. To summarize their thoughts, they see it as a positive development, with the most significant risk being investment becoming political without a clear strategy. With strategy, they mean the way France is investing in AI, but more than that, they think the best companies should “win” and be backed by TESi after they’ve proven their worth. Additionally, there is a call for the government to be a better buyer of services. Being part of NATO means interest from the American government, with more deals like a 96M€+ order for Ouras being possible. A problem Elina recently wanted to highlight in this article is that the Finnish military forces are more collaborative and willing to bet on new tech.
Nonetheless, as much as TESI is interested in covering the entire scene, it is growth-focused and hasn’t communicated interest in the pre-seed and seed stages. Additionally, curious foreign investors will look at TESI’s activities and lists, but as a government entity, they will never see a “Top 10” startup list like WIRED recently did. TESI’s political nature binds them, and as the scene in Finland has been born without political intervention (unlike, for example, Singapore), the local scene may not find their list “authentic.” This is a biased opinion more than a fact, and it should be tested.
Should we then turn to foreign media like WIRED and SIFTED? Sure, but their scope is much broader at any given time than Finland. Slush has recently flashed interviews with ex-operators / alums from the team and volunteer base who have started their own companies. However, with an arsenal of globally prominent entrepreneurs from across the globe and ten years’ worth of content, that’s golden; that type of interview with previous operatives should be reserved for an alum organization that does not officially exist or at least one established one beyond a WhatsApp group. We did have a gathering yesterday, though, which was nice :)
Naming alum groups, there are the Chair bearers, consisting of ex-operatives from the Helsinki-based student-run endeavors, not just Slush. We set up a fund, TKV, that got deployed, but after I ditched the plans to try to raise the second, I haven’t heard of plans getting a second one up. Arguably, this entity could source grassroots-level deals and be on top of the entire startup scene in Finland. However, TK’s challenge is too selective of its members and no genuine desire to change, not that it matters when it comes to operating a fund, but it affects loyalty towards the effort. Even if the organization wanted to, it would still be way too biased toward Helsinki, with little to no ties to the rest of Finland.
This brings us to the answer to the original question: Who should be on top of the grassroots scene in Finland? There are three options, but before we cover them, it’s worth mentioning that it can’t be any of the startup hubs, as they are inherently biased to their geographical agendas, even if the Maria 365 showcase seems to have gathered interest way beyond its walls. To highlight the problem, why would Maria 01 report continuously on things beyond its community? The same could be said of any VC; even if they hypothetically see all the deal flow in the scene, why would they be reporting on anything beyond their portfolio?
Option 1: FSC fixes the issues listed above. The biggest hurdle I don’t know how they would overcome is how to mix the political agenda with supporting startups at the grassroots level. I made a radical statement in Just Thoughts #9 that they should start a political party instead, but maybe they can stay an association for the companies in or beyond the growth phase.
Option 2: The Startup Foundation starts tackling this issue beyond what it did with all those late nights
put in. With enough resources, the foundation isn’t only concerned with Finnish grassroots activities but could also cover the Nordics. With a new CEO being lined up, there is a chance to make this change. The Startup Foundation is the entity that resides as an owner of Slush, and the other entities are legally registered as LLCs but operate with a non-profit mindset.Option 3: The next generation of Aaltoes operatives revise whatever is left of Kiuas or scratch it entirely to create something new. Something that doesn’t discriminate against the young or the old, science or student-led, nor heritage or origin. Hopefully, they are only biased toward the best and most ambitious. That would attract even serial entrepreneurs, as Antler fills the void of accelerator programs in the Finnish scene. Albeit looking at what
built with Turpentine might be the winning formula instead of trying to iterate our version of Y-combinator.What do you think? What am I missing?
Let’s make a poll just for the fun of it.
I’ll remind you that if the Finnish media houses thought this niche was worth covering, they would’ve already done so. The only “Joker” here could be Arctic 15, but it takes some legwork to build up the proper status.
My take on the 365 showcase companies
NatalMind is a good, underserved market. As a parent, I would’ve been interested in trying it, but I am not expecting more children soon. Babies will keep being born, but there are no long subscriptions (no reason to subscribe after labor), which may put off some investors unless you have long-term deals with the hospital and governmental entities that suggest using them for soon-to-be parents. With them going to South Africa, they should be talking with Remode to see what other countries would be interested in piloting this app. It would be a perfect client for Remode.
Inlisol’s presenter is a good reason to listen to NotebookLM first. It makes it a lot easier to grasp what they were doing, but I think there are many solutions already out there—I wonder if this would be more useful in care homes first than private homes.
Alvidio's presentation hit home with the Macklemore reference. He dropped his song Thrift Shop in the presentation. One of my favorite artists gave me a positive bias hit, and the presenter seemed to be having fun on stage. This is not a good reason to invest, so this is another example of using NotebookLM as a filter first.
Their second-hand solution seemed pretty neat, even if I didn’t understand who scanned the items: the seller or the shop owner. I, however, knew exactly who should be talking to them as she’s been knee-deep in this topic for years and is currently looking for opportunities. She’d also be better at assessing the business opportunity. However, the data set they could produce with this solution at scale is the actual gold here.
Innoduel’s pitch sounds way more interesting by NotebookLM than their live one. Even after talking with the CEO for quite some time afterward, I still couldn’t grasp what the solution did. Now I do, and I guess my only question is, why aren’t they ramping up sales with more prominent brands much faster, given the regulatory pressure from the EU on the topic?
IM.ENGINE looked good, but it first reminded me of smartphone fundoscopy. However, they seem to be in the same category as Vitroscope (a TKV portfolio company) as a startup making lab testing more efficient, except that they could harness data, which, again, in mass, has value for many different use cases. It is distant, but this seems like something Lars Lydersen should be advising on; I interviewed him earlier this year.
Navaia was new to me, and unfortunately, I had to hit the bathroom during their pitch. The pitch makes it sound like they're tackling something that feels like a real problem to the users.
Aircohol sounded like someone should’ve already told Brew Dogs’ founder, James Watt, about this ready-to-go solution. If he’s in, I would be in. His content perfectly contradicts Steven Barlett’s stuff (whom I also follow), as it feels way more “hands-on.”
PsyOn Games, on all metrics, domain, achievements, and potential, seemed like the one going to hit home with “doctors subscribing games.” it is a future I subscribe to that NotebookLM randomly picked up on and even went on to describe Osgenics (before they pivoted) that wasn’t at all part of the original pitch. God, I love this tool. On the current solution, Sebastian, who I was sitting with and who had dealt with big pharma for a decade, was skeptical that they would be able to convince every GM for every country separately. The fact that they got one big deal doesn’t mean it’s easily replicable. However, it could be huge if the solution is so good that it becomes standard regardless of country.
eMabler, with some of the people behind MaaS Global, who raised eight rounds before going bankrupt (NotebookLM labels this “street cred”), wasn’t initially convincing. Still, I understand the problem much better now when NotebookLM describes it. The “We don’t want to own the end customer” discussion in the live pitch confused me.
Pinya’s pitch made me feel uncomfortable as it was gamifying your search for sexuality. I sent it over to my friend, who’s highly aware and in the adult sex party scene, and the reaction was, “Feels like this is made by straight white men who haven’t taken the time to figure out anything” after testing the app. All I needed to know was to validate the feeling that this app was made for all the wrong reasons.
Who are the top three in my mind? Psyon Games, IMEngine and Alvidio, with Natal Mind and Navaia good runnerups. IMEngine seems to have the best focus as a company, track to value provided, and an extensive enough market, with the most significant difference in impact with capital invested (others might as well bootstrap for now), so I would pick them out of these for a #1 spot.
Are you intrigued? Did you find this valuable? Now is probably a good time to remind everyone I’m still seeking a job. If you have platform activities at a VC available, that’s perhaps my best fit, and I’d be happy to chat! You can email me at nicolas.dolenc@proton.me or call me if you have my number.
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