When pooling all the Nordic countries together into one innovation ecosystem, the region holds almost everything a top-tier ecosystem needs. Sweden has exit infrastructure and incubator coverage. Denmark has life-science depth and foreign capital pull. Finland has community institutions such as Slush and Maria01. Estonia has digital rails and regulatory innovation. Norway has industrial testbeds and pilot customers. Iceland has gender-balanced early-stage investment and energy assets.
The strengths are complimentary, not duplicated. The gap is connection, not capability, the study says.
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Shared data foundation is essential
The study emphasizes the need for a shared data foundation across the entire Nordic region. The data foundation should be built by scaling the open national databases that already exist such as Sweden Startup Next and the Startup Estonia dashboard, to one published method across all six countries.
Besides, the study sets out the following recommendations:
- Build a shared Nordic brand and a single contact point for the whole Nordic region, where companies can find customers and easily get an overview of the Nordic ecosystem.
- Becomes Europe’s regulatory front-runner by creating a Nordic Inc, that adopts EU Inc first and harmonizes rules for stock options and capital gains.
- Develop a Nordic capital stack, to close the growth-stage funding gap and attract more domestic institutional capital into regional venture investments.
The ‘State of the Nordic innovation ecosystem’ was launched on 27 august at TechBBQ in Copenhagen.
Sindre Bornstein, CEO of Nordic Innovation said: “For me, this is not a report, but the beginning of a new conversation,” highlighting the important role the new insights will play when moving forward with new initiatives to strenghthen innovation and competitiveness in the Nordics.
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Background
The State of the Nordic innovation ecosystem is funded by Nordic Innovation as a part of the tender 'Nordic Innovation ecosystem mobilization' under the program Nordic Forward: resilience and competitiveness for 2050. It is developed by SISP, KLAK, Maria01, Startup Estonia, TechBBQ and Smart Innovation Norway.
