12 000
The number of visitors to this year’s sold-out event. That’s up 4 000 from last year’s 8 000 visitors, but down significantly from the pre-pandemic level of 25 000. According to Reetta Pesonen, Head of Media & Public Relations at Slush, this is deliberate as they noticed an increased quality in the interactions last year, leaving many VCs and startups begging for tickets to this year’s event.
4
Percentage of GDP that Finlands invests in “innovation and research & development”, according to prime minister Sanna Marin, who gave one of Slush’s most visited stage interviews.
+1,3 billion euro
Amount invested in Finnish companies in 2022, according to Finnish Venture Capital Association. This is a new record for the country, which has the most VC money invested per capita in Europe.
50
Percentage of startups that don’t make it to the second round of funding. This is a good thing if you believe Niklas Zennström, founder of Skype and Atomico, who gave a heartfelt speech in the context of the upcoming economic turmoil.
— Shutting down can be healthy as it releases founders and talent from struggling businesses to companies with creator potential, he said from the stage.
€45 billion
Amount to be raised for European scale-ups according to European commissioner Mariya Gabriel, who announced a 5-step plan to stimulate the startup ecosystem. Among the other initiatives was a €10 billion mobilisation for connecting the 100 European innovation valleys and creating sandboxes for pioneering tech like AI, mobility, and biotech.
2
The number of hours that James Vincent spent every week with Steve Jobs when he served as Apple’s ad chief. Today, the master communicator, that also crafted the messaging for Airbnb and Snap, advises 130 different startups on communication and marketing for his company FNDR.
420
The number of employees at the metaverse platform Sandbox, according to its founder Sebastien Borget, who was interviewed onstage by Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke. That’s only 200 less than the hyped platform’s daily active users, which in a recent report by DappRadar was revealed to be 616.
5
The number of PhD level economists that are advising the virtual reality company Zoan when creating the policy rules for its metaverse platform Cornerstoneland.
— It’s important to make everything by the book, says founder and CEO Miikka Rosendahl.
