Author: Miroslava Shcherbakova

It’s been more than a week since Slush 2021, and we are still buzzing from the fantastic experience.

Slush is the world’s leading startup event facilitating founder and investor networking. Founded initially to transform attitudes toward entrepreneurship in 2008, Slush has evolved from a single gathering in Helsinki to a worldwide series of events. Efisco’s team met with so many refreshing startups at this year’s event and enjoyed multiple main and side events.

Our main takeaways this year are: 

• The importance of culture and a great team was mentioned in every speech. 
• Everyone struggles to find exceptional tech talent, but it’s crucial for startup success. Luckily Efisco can help with that 🙂
• Transparency and a holistic approach are critical for innovation and scalability.
• Green and health tech are on the rise. It’s not enough to want to make money when starting a business—investors looking for entrepreneurs trying to make the world a better place.

Furthermore, there were many impactful sessions and panels, but unfortunately, we could not attend all of them. Thankfully, Slush organizers have all stage talks at youtube.com/c/slush.

From the talks that we did attend, we would like to highlight:

• Gustav Söderström sharing his insights on creating Spotify’s product,
• Fredrik Hjelm and Caroline Hjelm recollecting the experience of building Voi,
• Cleantech 2.0 pannel with Tony Fadell, Brook Porter, Julia Brady and Andrew Beebe.

Another exciting part of the Slush programme worth mentioning was the pitching competition for early-stage startups. This year, a femtech startup Hormona founded by Karolina Löfqvist and Jasmine Tagesson, took a well-deserved win! You can watch their pitch here: https://lnkd.in/dmYSKB8U.

Kudos to the Slush team for organizing this wonderful gathering! We’ll see you again next year.