The Nordic Tech Story
This article is written by Clinton James, a Contributor Author at Startup Istanbul.
Martin Van Haller Groenbaek is a Partner of Bird & Bird Company based in Silicon Valley and brings out the agenda of Nordic as a successful story, having built a tech ecosystem and lowered transaction cost in angel investments. This case study has proof through running an effective community. His background is that of a lawyer, an angel investor and enjoys building and improving communities among many others.
Speaking of the similar languages across is borders as much as we all consider ourselves to be in a same region, there is still fierce competition within us, rather than inside. There is always a comparison to confirm this.
Therefore, they have slowly adjusted from looking at themselves as individuals and now are reviewed as a region especially in Denmark and it's in veterans like Sweden and Finland. An example that holds this affirmation is the bridge that joins Sweden and Denmark which contribute as a major impact into collaborating especially in the businesses and bringing the aspect of togetherness.
As per Nordic numbers, each Nordic country's per capita nominal GDP was at top 16 in 2014 and the combined GNP was at 1.7 trillion dollars at the time. It is the 7-8th largest economy in the world with about 3.4 million square kilometers inclusive of the biggest Island Greenland, making it the 7th largest country in the world with a population of around 26 million.
Nordic internal market is tells part of the EU internal market and has a history, language and culture that is almost the same within its environment. Entails legal infrastructure with laws that are almost similar between Denmark Sweden and Finland. Its level of corruption is very minimal and making internal trading and exportation among the easiest.
Sweden, Denmark and Finland are also on top 10 of most innovative countries in the world all the above confirm that there is an ease of doing business considering good network readiness and Nordic communities are mostly economically free.
Nordic technology startup have proven to be extremely innovative because it has a hotbed for world class innovative technology startups with the broad range of sectors especially in ecommerce, web, apps, games, ERP, e-government, hardware, health, fintech and big data. A good example of this kind of innovation is Linux computer software.
Having opened hubs in Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen, there are many success stories as this Nordic startup were born regionally but are going global. With access to integration of Human resource and Finance diversification, its geopolitical stability is well handled to allow descent and sustainable growth.
That is proven Nordic investor things that shows plenty of funding, a good supply versus demand, a few local VCs with plenty of international VCs, less dependency on government but no local market for exits.
With 3% of Europe's population, Nordics have taken on 11 % of Europe's VC investment and turned that into 3.9 billion dollars yearly in Exit value in the past 10 years based on Creandum's research.