Nordic Cooperation in Silicon Valley
Team Finland has had a strong presence in Silicon Valley since the mid-2000s. The first version of Team Finland was the Finnish Innovation Center FinNode that was formed when Finnish government entities all moved under one roof in Silicon Valley. The entities included Academy of Finland, Finnish trade promotion agency Finpro, The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation Tekes, and Technical Research Centre of Finland VTT. The office was established in Santa Clara in 2007.
Since then Team Finland has gradually moved towards north. In 2013, the office moved literally to the main street of Palo Alto. At the same time the Finnish Honorary Consul in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michel Wendell, who is also General Partner at Nexit Ventures, joined the Team Finland office in Palo Alto.
As of June 1, 2016, Team Finland joined the other Nordic colleagues at the Nordic Innovation House, a few blocks from where the Team Finland office was located earlier. Currently Team Finland has four hot seats at the Nordic Innovation House in Palo Alto. In addition, we have a private office room in San Francisco at a co-working space WeWork Transbay.
The Nordic Innovation House is co-funded by Nordic Innovation and the Nordic governmental agencies responsible for business growth within their respective countries. Team Finland shares the Nordic Innovation House with Innovation Norway, Innovation Center Denmark, Innovation Center Iceland and Vinnova from Sweden. Paula Salomaa is the Community Manager together with Katja Kotala, who is coordinating all the happenings.
The Nordic Innovation House is a co-working and virtual office for Nordic tech companies, investors and local advisors. It is a soft landing concept for entrepreneurs entering the U.S. market enabling them to tap into the local community of technology partners, investors and service providers. The Nordic Innovation House’s goals are to create value for the Nordic companies wanting to scale, reduce barriers and to kick-start Nordic businesses.
The Nordic countries benefit from working together. According to Paula Salomaa, the Nordic countries face similar challenges because they have lots of expertise and good products, but have difficulties with marketing. The Nordic Innovation House helps startups to connect with local partners and investors and stay up to date with Silicon Valley trends end events.
More information: http://www.nordicinnovationhouse.com/(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)
Text: Thuong Tan, Tekes