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#5 Norway: Merete challenges Peggy & Vestre, hard times for Easee & 1000+ tech thought leaders want to pause AI roll out

By 31 March 2023No Comments4 min read

📢 Merete from Lexolve boldly launched a political debate where she challenged the Minister of Trade and the leader of LO on growth conditions for startups as well as the fortune tax. Find her suggestions and discussions with the politicians here (link). We think this could be the start of very important political discussions in the startup scene, and together with Merete we will host a special edition of the TechTownHall dedicated to this topic on April 20 (link).

Top News

1. The Easee case – Jon Helmikstøl challenges the authorities and admits to not having given sufficient documentation during the process at the same time. (link)

2. Lucas from Shifter asks “What is your plan Jonas Gahr Støre?” in an attempt to highlight political challenges in the startup scene. (link)

3. Arne Tonning, partner at Alliance VC, explains what got them excited about 1X, the Norwegian robotics company that attracted OpenAI as an investor in its latest round. (link)

4. Startup investments drop by 43% in 2023 Q1 according to Shifter (link)

5. Trondheim’s startup scene banded together to launch Startup Trd, which has raised 15 million NOK to increase the output of the innovation ecosystem. (link)

6. Crowdlending platforms are under scrutiny by the Finanstilsynet and the media. (link)

7. Ludenso wins an award at Bett, the Oscars for EdTech in London (link)

8. OpenAI introduced plugins to ChatGPT (link) This launch is described as game-changing just like when Apple launched the App store. (link)

9. Startups use ChatGPT — Otovo summarizes for customers in different languages (link), Strise fights financial crime (link) and Dune Analytics uses GPT-4 to explain code (link).

10. More than 1,100 signatories including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and Yuval Harari have signed an open letter that calls for a 6-month pause in the development of AI systems. (link)

Latest on Funding

🦿1x Technologies has raised $23.5 million from OpenAI and Tiger Global. The funding will be used to build their new robot Neo and continue to develop the existing robot Eve. (link)

🔔 Field, the drone company, acquired American Precision Hawk and is aiming for a listing in the US. The acquisition sets the company at a value of 1.5 billion NOK. (link)

🔋 Wattif EV, which provides charging infrastructure, acquires BilLader AS after they raised 525 million NOK earlier this year. (link)

💵 Two, the buy-now-pay-later startup, raised a Series A round of 184 million NOK, valuing it at 800 million NOK after money. The round was led by VC Shine Capital and Antler, joined by VC Sequoia Capital, Day One Ventures and LocalGlobe. (link)

🛩️ Alva, an electric motor technology company that has Boeing as a customer, raised 117 million NOK from Statkraft Venture, NRP zero, Drone Fund and Jakob Hatteland. (link)

💸 Tomra purchased shares in Kezzler worth 60 million NOK and together with DNV and Investinor puts in 115 million NOK. (link)

🎥 Videocation raised 16.6 million NOK from existing investors (link)

🚀 ScaleupXQ, the go-to-scale partner for B2Bs, raised 5 million NOK from existing investors, network and employees. (link)

🛞 Noddi, who helps solve automotive maintenance, received a convertible loan from NAF. (link)

🎮 Good Game AS, an e-sports platform, has so far raised 8 million NOK through crowdfunding platform Folkeinvest. (link)

💕 Pletly gets previous CFO of Tomtom on board as an investor and plans to raise up to 3 million NOK. The round closes in April. (link)

Latest on Talent

🌏 Explore 204 remote jobs in the Nordics (link)

🇳🇴 Explore 93 open positions at Norwegian companies (link)

🎙️ A must listen podcast in our opinion – hear OpenAI’s founder Sam Altman’s thoughts on where AI is heading.. (link)

☀️ Glint Solar welcomes Evan Sarkassian, who has 15 years of experience in the solar industry, and moved from California to join the growing company. (link)

💫 Find Norway’s Top 50 women in tech list by Abelia (link)

⚙️ Ken Grønnbeck becomes CTO of Reodor Studios (link)

🚙 Easee lays off 138 employees in a push to gain control of their situation (link)

💳 Anders Skjævestad is the new chairman of the non-profit fintech cluster, NCE Finance Innovation (link)

🖥️ Tobias Stokke, who worked at Google and Meta, has joined Retailhub as Director of Operations. Henrik Valstad from EY, Coop and Schibsted joins the team as well. (link)

🧑‍🚀 Moina Tamuly resigns from Ntention and is in the process of building a new venture studio (link)

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