Student Inc. is a nonprofit student incubator at KTH, Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology, run in collaboration between KTH Innovation and Excitera. At its core, Student Inc. offers startups connected to KTH funding, coaching, office space, as well as events, workshops and more. Like many other incubators connected to universities, Student Inc. is focused on getting students the best resources they can leverage collective experience and keep their minds on running their businesses. “We want to help bring up the next Spotify or Skype, and keep the Swedish startup tradition going,” says Sebastian Fuchs, the founder and manager of the incubator.
Drawing from the obvious role models in the incubation space, Fuchs drew from the best parts of the AaltoVG and YCombinator model, but modified it to fit the Swedish ecosystem. “Stockholm doesn’t have the ecosystem to handle the seed environment,” he says, but sees Student Inc. as fulfilling a much needed role and transitioning early-stage startups into successful candidates for later stage Stockholm incubators, such as STING, the large official incubator at KTH.
Startups can apply just by getting in touch, but one method of getting accepted to the incubation space is to compete in Excitera’s case competitions. These can include Game Development, Mobile Services, or so on. The winners receive a three month trial period at the innovation space, but then must “pitch for their life” to independent members of KTH to see whether they have reached their initial goals or fulfill enough requirements to stay for longer periods of time.
If they are accepted, they can stay for another six months and receive further funding, coaching, and the network effects of being at Student Inc.
A major goal of Fuchs is to keep building a great culture as well as a “winning environment” where the startups are the center of attention. Here in Finland the Aaltoes kids have really helped put startups into the consciousness of regular students, so I really see the benefits of accomplishing the same goals through parties and other fun events. Aaltoes is a little bit older but has shot up quickly. Hopefully we’ll see the same tight culture build up in other Nordic and Baltic universities.
Ninety percent of Student Inc’s workshops and events are open to everyone, so stay tuned to their Twitter and Facebook page.
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Current projects at Student Inc. include:
Digital guestlists and management with tablets and smartphones
www.attendium.com
New smartphone audio-based services for museums etc.
www.audioapps.se
Democratic music service which lets people influence the playlist while listening together
www.blicko.com
(Placeholder logo) An easy way of comparing mobile phone subscriptions by using smartphone statistics
www.comparific.com
An easy and intuitive CV generator that helps you create a CV the way the industry wants it
www.cvfy.me
Backup service where people can get free backup, in exchange for sharing some of their unused hard drive space
www.degoo.com
Fund Friends’ visualization technology and apps give you fast overview and comparison of financial data, which facilitates and improves your financial investment decisions
www.fundfriends.se
A little app that lets you easily interact with your electronic devices on the Web and create your own social web of things
www.getlinkafy.com
Connects students with employers & student organizations through a personalized online event calendar!
www.studentity.se
