World’s largest start-up event, Slush, known for its sustained commitment to encourage the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs, concluded their 2018 Helsinki chapter. A student-driven, non-profit movement, the motivation of the event is to break notions about entrepreneurship and provide a platform for entrepreneurs world-over to exhibit their ideas and secure an opportunity to bring it to fruition. Slush, today, has grown into a melting pot for various communities, who add value through their local take on challenges, and channelize a solution for it. The community is 40,000 plus attendees strong, organizing more than 75 events globally.
Amongst the participating Indian start-ups were Stumagz’s solutions, Forbes recognized Edtech solution of India, Zunik Energies, a start-up focused on inverter topology, SDS, creator of first ever unmanned marine surface vehicle, any EMI, a payment aggregator FinTech company, Reckon Green, manufacturer of LED lamps that offer 800% longer life, Interview buddy, a cloud-based video interviewing platform, CYRRUP, an entity working in the domain of road safety, Cerelia Nutritech, an entity tackling maternal malnourishment through frugal innovation, to name a few.
Beginning on the 4th of December, Slush started with an interview of Julia Hartz, Co-founder & CEO of Eventbrite, by Harry Stebbings, founder of The Twenty Minute VC and Stride.VC, followed by a talk on “How Scaling a Hypergrowth Business & Creating a World-Class Team is all about Collaboration”. Day 1 also hosted a panel discussion on “Creativity vs Science: The Right Balance for Building Successful Games”. Day 2 began with “Showcase Studio: E-commerce & Online Market Place”, an intimate platform for promising start-ups to get stage-time to demonstrate the use of their products. This was followed by “Slush GIA Showcase”, a program that supports impact start-ups and showcases business opportunities in emerging markets, vital for solving complex challenges.
One of the Indian companies at Slush this year was NCrypted, a start-up enabler that provides ready-to-go software products and sector specific tailored solutions, consulting and advisory to start-ups and small to medium scale businesses. On Slush and the Finnish ecosystem, Kunal Pandya, CEO, NCrypted, said, “You have to be at Slush if you are part of the start-up ecosystem. We saw Slush as a great opportunity to connect with young, energetic start-up founders having brilliant ideas and thoughts. We also connected with like-minded investors, partners and country specific pavilions to discuss possible business collaboration and investment interests.”
Slush for their India activation organized “Slush Small Talks” in Hyderabad on 22nd November in association with T-Hub, a global start-up catalyst that caters to shaping entrepreneurs and helping them scale. The initiative was an effort to solidify the mutually beneficial relationship established between India and Finland and their respective start-up ecosystems. The aim of “Slush Small Talks” in India was to go a step beyond and aid Indian tech entrepreneurs connect with top-tier investors, and partners both in India and globally. Speakers included the likes of Peter Vesterbacka (former Mighty Eagle at Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds) Ville Vanhala (Co-Founder of Brella), Gourish Sinla (Chief Strategy Officer of Shivom), Adibeli Nduka-Agwu (Director of International Growth at Blinkist), Otso Rasimus (Founder of Valohai) and Florian Jourda (First Engineer at Box).
