Nordic Tech Tour Kicked Off Presenting The Top Firms In The Region

The Nordic Tech Tour, organized by the independent not-for-profit organization The European Tech Tour has kicked off today. During two and a half days, the selected 30 promising early and later stage growth companies based in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and the Baltic countries will gather together with the leading cross-border venture capital and global corporate firms.

During the event, the companies have twenty minutes to present their business plans to 70 international delegates, consisting of senior partners, VPs, and CEOs from the global venture capital and technology industry, as well as advisors and academics. The investment capital present at the Tour is said to be worth over €10 billion.

The 30 companies were chosen from a pool of over 500 companies based on five separate VC and advisor committees over a 5-month period and detailed reviews. The reviews assessed the uniqueness of their technology/innovation, strength of their business model, market size and growth with go to market strategy, the quality of management team, and international development potential.

According to Jussi Harvela, Tech Tour’s VP Selection Committee, and former growth entrepreneur, mentioned that the quality of the applications seemed to be really good both visually and content-wise. He continued that the quality of the management teams (especially being more international) and their pitches seems to have greatly improved from the early 2000’s. As put by Jarkko Virtanen, president of the Nordic Tech Tour 2010, 25% of Europe’s high tech companies are located in this region.

Harvela added that it naturally is impossible to say the selected 30 companies would be the absolutely best ones over the others, rather the bunch represents a good even mix of start-up and expansion stage “high-impact” and “sector-leading” growth businesses. There were slightly more firms selected from Finland compared to the other regions, due to many good firms in Finland, and also due to it being Finland’s “turn” this year, as Harvela and Tech Tour’s Chairman Sven Lingjaerde explained.

The selected firms span across multiple technology sectors, including new materials, semiconductors, nanotechnology, electrical devices, telecommunications & mobility, enterprise software, internet & media, IT system software, medical devices & IT, and cleantech.

The Nordic Tech Tour 2010 selections:

  • 2cureX Denmark
  • Axel Technologies Oy Finland
  • Beneq Oy Finland
  • Canatu Finland
  • Cint AB Sweden
  • ClimateWell AB Sweden
  • Confidex Ltd Finland
  • Eniram Ltd Finland
  • Fortumo OÜ Estonia
  • IT2 Treasury Solutions Denmark
  • Junglemap AS Norway
  • Mendor Finland
  • Microtask Ltd Finland
  • Nanoradio AB Sweden
  • PhotoSolar A/S Denmark
  • PlusFourSix AB Sweden
  • QuestBack Norway
  • Regio (Reach-U) Estonia
  • Renewa Oy Finland
  • Replisaurus Sweden
  • Senseg Finland
  • Shark Solutions A/S Denmark
  • SmartOptics AS Norway
  • Sulake Corporation Oy Finland
  • Supponor Finland
  • TaxiPal Estonia
  • There Corporation Finland
  • Tobii Technology Sweden
  • Zeropex Norway
  • ZeroTurnaround OÜ Estonia