The Top Online News Sources in Nordic Tech

The Nordic tech ecosystem is booming, and to keep track you need to follow a new media universe of blogs, podcasts, conferences and twitter accounts. Most of these sources are at the grassroots level, covering startups and innovations, which is essential to understand the wider tech market and its evolution. For your convenience, Standout Capital has listed the top online news sources across the Nordics.

The Pioneers

When we started to track the Nordic tech market systematically in 2013, there were three news blogs that stood out. James Pember in Stockholm had founded The Swedish Startup Space (and he also helped us with initial research for Standout’s database), Neil Murray in Copenhagen had launched The Nordic Web (now also apodcast), and a team including Miikka Kukkosuo, Karri Saarinen, Ville Vesterinen, Antti Vilpponen, Dmitri Sarle and Greg Anderson built ArcticStartupin Finland. These three media outfits are still some of the best sources for Nordic tech (and they are in English too, for the pleasure of the global tech community). The Nordic Web Weekly Newsletter is a great weekly round-up of the Nordic market, don’t miss it. ArcticStartup has also launched the ArcticStartup Podcast and the Arctic15 conference, 2-3 June in Helsinki. However, the main tech attraction in Finland (and the best conference in the Nordics and possibly the world) is Slush, this year happening 30 Nov-1 Dec in Helsinki. The mother of modern Scandinavian tech conferences is probably Sime, launched by Spray in 1996 (but now more corporate than revolutionary). Tyler Crowley revived the Stockholm tech scene, introduced the #sthlmtech hashtag and a series of tech meetups, including the main event Sthlm Tech Fest.

The Local Sources

From Denmark, Nordic Startup Bits is covering Nordic startups and Nordic Game Bits tracks the Nordic game developer industry. Trendsonline.dk is a blog about Danish startups and also a podcast. Vertica.TV is Danish web TV covering e-commerce, entrepreneurship and innovation. From Innovation Center Denmark comes the Silicon Valley Tech Talk monthly newsletter, and CPHFTW (the organisation for Copenhagen startups) curates the #CPHFTW weekly newsletter covering the Danish and Öresund region startup scene. Stefano Zorzi (Partner at Founders in Copenhagen) runs an insightful blog, and another Danish blogger is Rasmus Bjerngaard, general partner at Northcap. Copenhagen is the host of the Nordic Startup Conference (18 March 2016), in cooperation with Tech Nordic Advocates, a network of Nordic entrepreneurs and investors. Inno-Overblik is another great resource for Danish tech.

In Norway, Technoport and Trondheim Tech, both based in Trondheim, cover the tech community. Innomag is an “innovation magazine” that follows startups and trends, and ScienceNordic offers science news from the Nordic countries. DNgründer is a founder blog from business daily Dagens Naeringsliv. Also check Startup Norway and their newsletter covering the Norwegian startup scene. They are also the organisers of Startup Extreme, happening 15-17 June 2016 in Bergen/Voss.

In Finland, we like the entrepreneurial Startup Sauna blog, and there are several news sources in English; Helsinki Times Business and Good News Finland among others. Two interesting Finnish bloggers are Riku Seppälä at Open Ocean Capital, check his blog here and Ekaterina Gianelli, director at Inventure, blogging here.

In Sweden, Øresund Startups covers tech startups in the the Øresund region; Copenhagen, Malmö, Lund and Helsingborg. Smashdig, reports news from the Swedish digital media world. STHLM Startup Community is a useful news feed.

Two of the most active tech news blogs in Sweden are DI Digital (from business daily Dagens Industri), and Breakit, started by Stefan Lundell and Olle Aronsson, two journalists who used to work at Dagens Industri. You can also follow their podcasts Digitalpodden and Breakit’s podcast. Breakit offers a useful newsletter with breaking news, Breakit Alert. Entreprenör covers entrepreneurial life in Sweden (in Swedish) and if you’re interested in the Gothenburg startup scene, Chalmers Ventures produces a monthly newsletter. Other Swedish podcasts include Ehandelspodden, Entreprenörspodden, Hackerpodden, IWPodden and Startuppodden.

One of the most exciting initiatives in Sweden is the Nordic Tech List, soon to be launched by Di Digital. NTL is a comprehensive database covering companies, investors and entrepreneurs in the Nordics.

A very active and recent voice in the Stockholm tech community is Natalia Brzezinski, now the CEO of Symposium and the Brilliant Minds Conference (6-12 June in Stockholm). And don’t miss her Standout Podcast. Yes, we like the name!

Further east in Estonia, Startup Estonia is a monthly newsletter covering the Estonian startup scene. Labs of Latvia and the Pulse of the Latvian Startup Scene covers what’s going on in Lativa and Startup Lithuania weekly newsletter about the Lithuanian startup scene.

To the west in Iceland,Norðurskautið (Nordurskautid)covers the Icelandic Startup and Tech scene, and you can also enjoy theNorðurskautið newsletterandNorðurskautiðpodcast. Also checkIceNewsandThe Reykjavík Grapevine.

The Global, European and Nordic news

Most international media and tech blogs cover what’s going on in the Nordics with fairly accurate and frequent reporting, for example Business Insider (London, New York), Cofounder Magazine (Tallinn), Financial Times (London), Forbes (New York), Guardian (London), Hot Topics (London), The Next Web (Amsterdam), Pando Daily (San Francisco), Re/code (San Francisco), Pivotl, formerly StrategyEye (London), TechCrunch Europe (London), tech.eu (Brussels), VentureBeat (San Francisco, New York) and The Verge (New York).

Tech.eu weekly newsletter is quite useful, covering of the European tech business community and there’s also a well-produced Tech.eu podcast, and Tech.eu video interviews on YouTube. Nordic publications include Nordic Business Report by the Nordic Business Forum and UpNorth Magazine.

The Nordics in Silicon Valley

There are two fantastic initiatives for Nordic companies in Silicon Valley. Both Silicon Vikings and Nordic Innovation Houseare, in addition, also great sources to follow what’s going on back home in the Nordics. Sign up for one of Silicon Vikings social media channels. And don’t forget SVForum.

The Private Equity and Venture Capital

Each of the Nordic countries has their own local venture capital and private equity association, usually a pretty good source. Check the Swedish Venture Capital Association (SVCA), and their colleagues in Denmark (DVCA), Norway (NVCA) and Finland (FVCA).

The Hashtags on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook

To check Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for updates, search using the hashtags #sthlmtech (Stockholm), #cphftw (Copenhagen), #helyes (Helsinki), #siliconfjord (Oslo) and#nordicmade (general Nordic). Of course, these are just a few – there are more hashtags to explore…

The Standout Nordic Tech list and Standout News

To make it really simple for you, we have put together a list of over 100 Twitter accounts with reliable Nordic influencers and insiders. Just follow our Twitter list Standout Nordic Tech. And don’t forget to sign up for the Standout News newsletter about Nordic deals and trends. Subscribe here.

Originally published on Standout Capital.