Jane Walerud inducted into SUP46's Swedish Startup Hall of Fame

Last night 500 people from the startup community gathered at startup hub SUP46 in Stockholm as the third person was inducted into Swedish Startup Hall of Fame. The SUP46 award commemorates people who, through their actions and personality, have made an exceptional contribution to the Swedish startup scene.

Previous years Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify, and Niklas Zennström, founder of Skype and Atomico have been inducted. Niklas Zennström attended the event to hand over the trophy to Jane Walerud. The motivation for inducting Jane Walerud read:

“During the past 15 years, Jane Walerud has been involved in, and passionate about, the Swedish startup ecosystem - founding, funding and driving management teams. She has enabled companies in the community such as Klarna, Lensway, Bluetail and Tobii to take their first steps into becoming the big players they are today. Apart from that, she has paved the way for women within the tech and investment scene and helped develop the Swedish startup scene into the flourishing creature it is today. We therefore see it as an honor to commemorate this by inducting Jane Walerud into the Swedish Startup Hall of Fame.”

- Great cities are built on communities and not individuals. Stockholm has become an important tech hub in Europe due to the passion, drive, and re-investment of entrepreneurs like Jane, supporting and mentoring others. Success breeds success, says Niklas Zennström, Partner and CEO of Atomico.

- Jane Walerud has been a forerunner and inspiration for the startup ecosystem and we are grateful for everything she has done to help early-stage startups in the community. She is also a great role-model in the continuous work to get more women both funding and founding new exciting startups, says Jessica Stark, CEO and Co-founder of SUP46.

- I really look forward to seeing a t-shirt signed Jane Walerud on the wall in SUP46’s entrance – it is a great honor! I hope I can inspire other women from around the world to go for a career within entrepreneurship; it is exciting, profitable and educational, says Jane Walerud.

During the event SUP46 also presented a report on the growth of their startup members during the past year. See the figures here: http://sup46.com/sup46-the-past-year/

Big media players, great investors, strategic governmental organizations, and other actors with a strong community authority and startup experience, all support SUP46. SUP46’s partners are MTGx, Schibsted Growth, Bonnier Growth Media, Northzone, Creandum, Industrifonden, GP Bullhound, STING (Stockholm Innovation & Growth), Almi Invest, Stockholm Business Region, VINNOVA, AMF Fastigheter and Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship. SUP46’s sponsors are CISCO, Microsoft, Jansson & Norin, Grant Thornton, SEB, Nasdaq och MNDx.