{"id":155313,"date":"2025-11-26T21:55:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T21:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/155313\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T21:55:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T21:55:05","slug":"breaking-down-the-boom-in-the-nordics-startup-ecosystem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/155313\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking down the boom in the Nordic&#8217;s startup ecosystem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The always-a-good-time Slush conference took place last week in Helsinki and, as always, it was a showcase of the <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/11\/21\/the-european-startup-market-is-ready-for-the-limelight\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">growing power of the European ecosystem.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Nordics, specifically, are having a moment, led this time around by Sweden\u2019s vibe-coding darling Lovable, often regarded as an example of the ecosystem\u2019s growing success. Other standout, albeit older names, include Klarna and Spotify.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On this week\u2019s Equity, we sat down with Dennis Green-Lieber, the founder of the AI company Propane, to talk about the booming success of the Nordic ecosystem. Green-Lieber is based in Denmark and has been building in the ecosystem for the past 15 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He chalked up the success of the ecosystem to a few things, including the region\u2019s social safety that lets young people take risks without fear of losing everything. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe newer founders, new generations, are being way more bullish and taking ownership,\u201d he told Equity. \u201cI have not seen, in my 15 years, anything [like] what\u2019s going on right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s becoming a hub for deep tech and AI, <a href=\"https:\/\/techfundingnews.com\/how-did-nordics-become-a-hub-for-deep-tech-startups-industry-experts-reveal-the-facts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">as one report put it,<\/a> and is now valued at half a trillion dollars, with Nordic startups receiving a little more than $8 billion in venture investments in 2024. The government also plays a part in these companies, providing funding to startups, like Green-Lieber\u2019s, to help founders grow their companies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In some ways, Green-Lieber agrees with others that the ecosystem is a few years behind \u2014 but, at the same time, \u201cwe\u2019re moving tremendously a lot faster,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We couldn\u2019t leave the conversation without talking about AI a little. When asked if we were in a bubble, Green-Lieber said he didn\u2019t know. \u201cThere\u2019s tons of opportunities which haven\u2019t been explored,\u201d he said, adding that it\u2019s true that some people are just putting money in bad stuff, but \u201cthat\u2019s just the risk of venture capital.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The always-a-good-time Slush conference took place last week in Helsinki and, as always, it was a showcase of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[138,336,16661,11720,111,139,36720,69,103034,98290],"class_list":{"0":"post-155313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship","10":"tag-equity-podcast","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nordic","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-propane","17":"tag-slush"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}