Startin.LV association launched on Tuesday a new hackathon series Startup Slalom, inspired by snowy hilltops of Latvian mountains, and said the first event will be held on Nov 11-13.
The event at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga will focus on financial and insurance technologies. Slalom hackathons will be held every 2-3 months and cover both ICT and science-based startups.
“We start with fintech because it has the most interest from both, startup and investor side,” chairperson of Startin.LV Jekaterina Novicka, said in a statement. “4 in every 10 euros invested in Baltic startups so far went to fintech.”
Some 40% of all startup funding in the Baltics went to financial technologies mostly to Latvian BitFury, Mintos and CreamFinance, Estonian Fortumo and Lithuanian TransferGo.
Two weeks ago the Latvian Startup Association “Startin.LV” announced an agreement with Latvian Ministry of Economics on a national startup strategy. Series of hackathons is one of its first initiatives.
The highest mountain of Latvia is 311.6 metres above the sea level.
