You might be wondering why it would even matter to watch Norwegian startups. When you think of countries famous for their startups, Norway isn’t known to feature too prominently. And yet this country is steadily gaining prominence in the startup space, especially the tech startup sector.
Part of the reason is that Norway has a strong spirit of Entrepreneurship. Norway’s economy grew as a result of the discovery of oil deposits in the North Sea. However, the country soon decided to migrate from a resource-based economy to an entrepreneurship based one, with a special emphasis on technology and services. It has a stable government, a high standard of living, a good education system, highly skilled labor, a tech savvy population, great infrastructure and ease of doing business, lots of private incubators, and a low unemployment rate. It also certainly helps that the country has the 2nd highest GDP per capita in the world.
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This is the perfect environment in which startups can grow that go on to change the world. And many are cropping up indeed, and we do expect them to go on to change the world. Do you want to learn about some of them? Here are the top 7!
Kahoot
Kahoot was founded in 2011 and seeks to transform education technology to make it more user friendly, intuitive, and fun! It basically has an approach to education that gamifies it. The unique selling point is the huge existing catalog of user generated content, not to mention the strong network effects (it’s on track to 100 million users, if it hasn’t already got there).
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They’re making a particularly good effort in an industry that is experiencing rapid innovation. These days, not only can you learn online, but you can even get homework help online. You can learn more if you hop over to this website, where you can find talented experts to help you with your school work.
Spacemaker AI
In the spirit of employing AI to solve the world’s problems and make life easier, Spacemaker AI is using AI to make architecture faster and more innovative. Their AI engine synthesizes expertise from many different fields to optimize the building development process. The main focus is to make the building development process faster, more efficient, and more sustainable, and the company is already gaining a lot of traction, having partnered with some of the biggest developers in Norther Europe.
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Otovo
Otovo is all about improving the accessibility of solar power. The company aims to be the largest solar retailer in Europe. Its unique selling point is to make the process of purchasing and installing solar panels easier, and employing analytics to reduce energy consumption and costs for their customers.
Unloc
Unloc is a unique company that is seeking to digitize house keys. They’re leveraging the power and growth of the Internet of Things to make it possible to remotely grant access to spaces to the right people, such a member of the household, a coworker, a cleaner, etc. With this new technology, it’s possible to send keys via text, taking out the hassle of having to share physical keys and risking losing them.
Boost.ai
Boost is on track to becoming the first Norwegian unicorn, with a possible billion-dollar valuation in the offing. The company focuses on building AI powered virtual assistants, A.K.A chatbots, and has quickly become a leader in the space. Since its inception in 2016, it has grown to over 100 people and continues to build partnerships with industry leaders around the world. At the time of this writing, it has already automated over half of the chat traffic going to DNB, Norway’s largest bank.
Empower
Empower is looking to leverage the power of blockchain to help solve the plastic waste problem the world currently faces. Over $10 billion worth of plastic waste finds its way into the natural environment on a yearly basis. Employer is setting up recycling stations where people can deliver plastic waste and exchange it for cryptocurrency tokens, which they can later redeem as cash.
BlueEye Robotics
BlueEye Robotics builds drones that help us take a look underneath the waves. Their drones enable underwater exploration and make it more accessible to people, helping them learn more about our final frontier on the planet: the oceans. In fact, they have an ethical imperative to building their drones, as they believe that learning more about the oceans will help more people understand how to preserve them and make them more sustainable.
7 Norwegian Startups to Watch out for in 2020 – Conclusion
As you can see, the future promises to be exciting with the things these 7 startups are trying out. We’ve only mentioned 7, but they are only a slice of the many other startups in Norway doing great things to make the world a better place. We all can’t wait for them to succeed in their endeavors.
7 Norwegian Startups to Watch out for in 2020 is written for Daily Scandinavian by Sandra Larson. Sandra is a renowned freelance writer and journalist. She emphasizes the importance of good content and tries to improve people’s perception of the profession of a writer by explaining its complexity.
Feature image (on top): Photo, courtesy Unsplash