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Norway #29: Tech Townhall with Jan Christian Vestre and NAST, a robot responds to real-time verbal requests & Homely secured 20 million NOK.

By 17 March 2024No Comments4 min read

Top News

  1. Trade Minister Jan Christian Vestre gathered founders at Mesh Youngstorget (link) and Digs (link) for his inspillsmøte (feedback meeting), and joined the Tech Townhall in Oslo where he discussed NAST with Vegard Vik, CFO at Oda, Merete Nygaard, CEO at Lexolve and Anders Mjåset, CEO at Mesh Community. (link)
  2. Slush’D Energy in Mandal brought startups, scale-ups and investors from the whole country together along with international investors. (link)
  3. According to Pitchbook’s 2023 Nordic Private Capital Breakdown overall exit value ended at €1.6 billion in 2023, a 72.2% decline from the previous year. (link)
  4. Female-founded startups reached their highest levels in both deal value and deal count across all of Europe’s funding rounds in 2023. Representing 20.5% of the total deal value and 25.8% of the total deal count. (link)
  5. Despite a slowdown in startup investments, the Proptech industry saw a rise from 30 issues worth 622 million NOK in 2022 to 32 issues worth 1.55 billion NOK in 2023, as shared by Daniel Butenschøn, CEO of Proptech Norway. (link)
  6. This robot can respond to verbal requests in real time while completing physical tasks. The video shows Figure 01, which was trained on a lot of video data in partnership with OpenAI. (link)
  7. Here is Finansavisen’s list of 10 Norwegian startup companies with founders under 30. (link).
  8. Danish Nordic Makers are setting their sights on Norway, as they’re eager to invest in the seed rounds of B2B startups. (link)
  9. Renate Nyborg, former CEO of Tinder has launched Meeno, an app designed to combat loneliness among men. The app will launch in the Nordics, the Netherlands and later in the US, UK and Canada. (link)
  10. Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon are backing a longevity clinic in Stockholm. (link)

Latest on Funding

💸 Sarsia is planning to launch a new fund between 700 – 1000 million NOK. (link)

🚀 Verdane has taken over a portfolio of Nordic tech shares from Swedish investment company VNV Global. (link)

🩺 SpinChip Diagnostics, a healthtech startup, raised 115 million NOK from French Biomérieux, at a valuation of 565 million NOK. (link)

🚞 Cemit, a railway data intelligence company raised 75 million NOK from Core Eqty, which will be spread over 3 years. (link)

🏗️ OSC, which creates simulators for the offshore and energy industry, raised 30 million NOK from Momentum, Eviny Ventures, Skagerak Capital, OBOS and Construct Venture. (link)

🏠 Homely, alarm systems for households, raised 20 million NOK from their existing investors Schibsted, Rasmussengruppen and Nalbant, valuing the company at 305 million NOK. (link)

🛴 Surf Beyond, a Norwegian scooter company, purchased the European business of Superpedestrian, a bankrupt US-based scooter startup, for €5 million. (link)

🔋 Wattif EV, the charging company, acquired Laddel, which offers and specializes in advanced fleet management. Laddel’s employees will continue and join the Wattif team. (link)

👗 ReLi purchased the Vibrent/Fjong bankrupt estate. (link)

Latest on Talent

🥗 Karl Munthe-Kaas is stepping down as the CEO of Oda after a decade in the leadership role. (link)

🏙️ May Britt Hansen will be the new CEO of Trondheim Tech Port. She was previously at Bocuse d´Or Europe and European Region of Gastronomy Trondheim. (link)

🌬️ Emma Tryti, previously Chief Commercial Officer eCommerce & Invoice at Vipps and CEO of Kron, is the new CEO of Airthings. (link)

👩‍💻 Ingvild von Krogh Strand, who has a background in NHO, UNICEF, and Innovation Norway, is the new Head of Technology Policy at Abelia. (link)

💻 Robin Wänlund, previously an investor at Alliance VC, has joined Deckmatch as their new Head of Business Development. (link)

💡 Andreas Slettvoll, the CEO of Chooose, will step down as CEO and step over to a Board Director role, and Joseph Beaudin will take over as CEO. (link)

🌇 Vegard Aas, with a background from Bain & Company, BCG and Telenor, will lead Marketer Equities. (link)

✨ After selling Vibbio to On24, Marianne Bratt Ricketts is back with a new startup called Scalio. (link)


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