It was an event that led the hottest startups to one of the coldest cities in Europe.
Famed for its reputation in connecting some of the most innovative startups with the world’s most prominent investors, Slush 2023 still has the tech world talking. With over 13,000 attendees, 5,000 startup founders and 3,000 investors, time was precious at the highly anticipated conference. “It’s not just about the stages, it’s about the side events,” Martin Absenger, CEO of DIVU, tells me excitedly. With a monster matchmaking tool that enabled over 20 thousand meetings to take place, the need for speed and handshake urgency was prominent from simply walking around the Helsinki Expo and Convention Center.
Slush Finland
There was a sizable Irish contingent who made it their business to be there. I counted at least sixty-five well-known Irish startup founders, investors and members of the media who had some appetite for meeting and greeting the world’s most innovative minds. Some Irish companies in attendance included Intercom, Provizio, Stripe and &Open. Known for being one of the most founder-focused events on earth, many entrepreneurs I met at the airport travelled by themselves as I was informed that ‘it’s easier to network that way.’
Slush is an event which has strengthened Finland’s emerging reputation as the ‘land of the unicorns’. Growth, grit and determination were plain to witness in many of the talks, which centred around concepts, investment, and the fact that achieving success is a marathon, not a sprint. Some of the big names involved this year included Claire Hughes Johnson, Chief Corporate Advisor of Stripe; Tony Xu, Co-founder and CEO at Doordash; Cal Henderson, Co-Founder and CTO of Slack, Founder and Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg and Severin Hacker, Co-founder and CTO of Duolingo among others.
Generative AI
Generative AI played a prominent role, and two of the most crowd-heavy talks dominating the main stage involved Thrive Capital’s interview with Romain Huet, the Head of Developer Experience at OpenAI and Lightspeed Venture Partner’s interview with Mistral Co-founder Arthur Mensch. Professor of Practice in Applied ML and AI at Aalto University and CEO and co-founder of Silo AI, Peter Sarlin, was tasked with representing Finland’s progress in the field. He confidently took part in a panel where he provided insights into the current state of AI and how founders can use it to create value. Speaking at the event, Peter said, “The key question is what is the optimum path to production and how to create value with this technology”, later adding he believed the solution to be embedding LLMs (Large Language Models) into software products.
Dozens of panels had generative AI at the forefront, where they debated how it was disrupting every area of our lives. In his keynote speech, Des Traynor, one of Intercom’s Irish contingent and renowned co-founders, described generative AI as a “meteor strike to the software industry.” Leading on from that, on another panel, Kompas VC partner Sebastian Peck commented on the lack of control surrounding the new technology. “The whole (OpenAI) issue highlights a real need to think about corporate governance. The real question is, what responsibility do investors and founders have when experimenting with new technology?”
Responsibility aside, it was evident to see that generative AI will be the focal point at many of 2024’s leading tech conferences. A brief conversation with an investor (who would like to remain off the record) indicated that many funding pools over the next twelve months are set to show favourable interest in startups involved within what has become a booming industry.
As the two-day event ended, the atmosphere across Helsinki was electric, with many of the Irish contingent (almost) talking and networking out. For Ireland’s emerging companies, Slush is sure to provide innovative inspiration to many as they continue to recall a great big stove of startup sauna appreciation in the year ahead.
