The North is the land of untouched nature, the home of aurora borealis, white nights and most of all: innovative and entrepreneurial spirit. Nordic countries have been sitting on the throne of the Global Innovation Index ranking for several years in a row now. What’s their secret to ruling? Their ability to scale up effectively might be one key ingredient.
High growth enterprises are important contributors to employment and wealth creation, and especially those medium-sized enterprises that innovate and scale-up are the driving force behind economic growth. According to recently published Scale-ups in the Nordics – Statistical Portrait 2008-2016 by Nordic Innovation, there is an increasing number of scale-ups in the Nordic countries: the number has increased to 3,000 scale-ups in 2016, and the scale-ups created nearly 200,000 jobs across the Nordic countries in the period 2013-2016. The scale-ups constitute only 0.19% of all enterprises but stand for 5.2% of all employment in the non-financial business economy. The analysis shows that there is a need to increase the number of Nordic scale-ups and that is what Nordic Scalers want to do.
Nordic Scalers was launched by Nordic Innovation to address the perceived gaps in in the Nordic entrepreneurship system: to increase the number of scaleups and to improve the competence base in high-growth venturing. “All Nordic countries are currently running scaling activities, but they are still mostly targeted at the startup phase. One of the major differences compared to globally leading ecosystems is the size. Combined, the Nordic countries are big enough to produce critical mass with true potential for growth”, says Managing Director Svein Berg from Nordic Innovation.
“We’ve brought some of the fastest growing and most ambitious tech scaleups – such as Codeable, Fishbrain, Documaster, Quuppa, Meniga – into the Nordic Scalers program to help them scale even faster, by offering 1:1 hands-on coaching, structured toolkits, as well as opening up new networks of experts and partners. We believe this way of working will strengthen the Nordic region and contribute to massive value creation in the future”, says Adrian McDonald, Partner at Result.
To get to know more and hear firsthand stories from scale-up entrepreneurs, investors and influencers from the Nordics and internationally, join us at Arctic15 for the second Nordic Scale-up Summit on 5-6 June in Helsinki. Get your tickets here.
We will uncover the most exciting scaling companies from the region in collaboration with our partners at Nordic Innovation.
Among the key notes is Jeff Abbott, the Silicon Valley Entrepreneur – who is taking the Blitzscaling methodology to the world. Speakers include Ola Ahlvarsson, Entrepreneur/Change Maker/International Speaker/Moderator, Sean Percival from Appear.in, Adam Kostyal, Nasdaq, Tommy Palm, CEO of Resolution Games one of the people behind Candy Crush Saga, and Erik Engellau-Nilsson, CEO, Norssken Foundation.
