What is hot in the European Startup Ecosystem?
The sky was bright blue when I arrived to Barcelona, Spain on the 25th of February. The temperature was +15 C. I was full of energy and felt exited. I was participating to 4YFN startup event organized for the fourth time as a part of Mobile World Congress 2017. The organizer expected over 100.000 visitors to the Mobile World Congress this year and over 10.000 visitors to 4YFN event. The visitor estimate was exceeded and there were over 108.000 visitors at MWC2017.
4YFN event was very similar than SLUSH startup event in Helsinki (except the weather). Startup ecosystem in Spain did not know about SLUSH and I felt very surprised.
The people whom I spoked to about SLUSH were very interested in the event. They all said that they will definitely participate to the next SLUSH, so I hope to see many familiar faces around next time in Helsinki.
The 4YFN startups and their services were similar to the services and companies that are currently participating in various Finnish incubators and accelerator programs with whom we collaborate with.
4YFN and MWC2017 gave a good insight to the technological development and futuristic projection of the global society.
Certain topics, such as the ones mentioned below, were hotter than others even though also some very interesting niche startups fields represented their innovations.
Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, IoT, Healthcare and wellbeing, smart messaging and bots were all there. IoT was well presented in the MWC 2017. I also fell for self-driving robo cars, interactive advertising and the Pepper humanoid robot.
I had for example a good discussion with Barcelona based startup Smartech Group, which is making augmented reality maps and interactive advertising solutions, and it might be that you will hear from this company also in the Scandinavian market soon.
The Smartech Group’s products felt great as the team members participating to the event were very positive. They had several use cases (such as i-card and the tourist maps of different cities) available for the visitor with them at their stand. The visitor experience was great. I looked at the tourist map of Barcelona through my mobile phone in 3D and captured a picture of the Columbus monument, which is situated beside the sea shore and Maremagnum.
One thing that I really enjoyed in this event was the atmosphere. Even in the last of the successive three days every meeting and presentation was started by a handshake and a smile. The discussions were spiced up with a good sense of humor.
Some of the companies that I met were positively surprised with some additional business and legal considerations that we discussed and they said that they like the value creation and business opportunities, and that we will continue discussions also after the event.
The legal considerations were the ones that we are dealing with on a daily basis with other startup ventures and growth companies; go to market, access to finance and scaling up your opportunities with corporations and other enterprises. We also assist in Intellectual Property Right strategies and commercialization of Intellectual Property.
We are looking forward to meeting with all of the Kiuas Team Up teams and we are excited to help them in their legal considerations — let’s make something fascinating together.
Text and the pictures:
Marja Hohti
Senior Associate
Mäkitalo Rantanen & Co Ltd, Attorneys-at-Law
