Recap: The State and Future of the Norwegian Startup Ecosystem
We gathered more than 30 participants from all sectors of the startup ecosystem from across Norway to discuss challenges and opportunities for collaboration.
On Tuesday 23rd August Oslo Business Region gathered more than 30 participants from all sectors of the startup ecosystem from across Norway for “The State and Future of the Norwegian Startup Ecosystem” networking event, discussing and looking at common challenges and opportunities.
Eve Peeterson, CEO of StartupEstonia, gave the keynote address on how and what Estonia has done to successfully have a thriving and vibrant startup ecosystem. Currently VC investments per capita is ranked 3rd in the world and best in Europe. As she pointed out “investors invest in people not solutions”. The political side of setting up business in Estonia also plays a significant role with the introduction of the Startup Visa scheme (implemented 2017), which has facilitated the influx of foreigners in the work forces. It is estimated that as much as 40% are foreigners, and that 80% of these are from outside the EU.
Roundtable discussions of key questions
Following the inspired and motivational keynote participants discussed and elaborated on four key questions to strengthen the collaboration of the startup ecosystem in Norway.
How can we facilitate more smart investments in Norwegian companies?
What can the Norwegian ecosystem do better to facilitate talent attraction?
What can we do to ensure a more cohesive and collaborative ecosystem across the country?
How can we collaborate to create / participate in more meaningful meeting places?
These are all big and multifaceted questions, but still the working groups managed to come up with a lot of ideas and suggestions of how to strengthen collaboration within the ecosystem.
The overall message was clear: Meet, connect and knowledge share. These were the three key elements highlighted by participants as critical for the ecosystems to better support and guide startups in all regions of Norway.
Representatives from Trondheim kommune, Stavanger Business Region/ Stavanger Kommune, Norway Health Tech, Construction City, Simula, Aleap, the Life Science Cluster, Antler, the Factory, Binthub,, Oslo International Hub, Charge Incubator, Kongsberg Innovasjon, Impact Startup, Katapult, Oslo Science Park, MESH, Startup Norway, SoCentral, IKT Norge, and Innovation Norway were present at the event.