A brief Norwegian history

The Norwegian start-up scene was pioneered by the likes of Opera, Fast, Visma, Meltwater and AutoStore. They paved the way through the 90s and early 2000s. The financial crisis then sparked a new generation of startups, like Kahoot!, Oda, Gelato, Xeneta and reMarkable. These formed the core of the modern Norwegian startup scene as the international startup scene exploded. In 2015, the oil industry had a rough year, which further accelerated the establishment of a modern startup ecosystem in Norway. In the following years, we saw the rise of rising stars like 1X, Dune, Enode, Portal One and many many others.
‍
The venture capital marked followed a similar path with the early success of Northzone and Creandum (90s and 00s). Then Alliance (est 2001) and StartupLab (est 2012) took the venture model to the seed and pre-seed stages, whilst Katapult (est 2013) pioneered impact investing and Mesh (est 2012) provided their meeting places. Shifter (est 2015) created the first dedicated news site for startups, and Antler (est 2018) built a global venture capital company.
‍
These and hundreds of other startups, investors, ecosystem initiatives and individuals have built the modern startup scene to what it is. Together with the established business scene, the capital markets, the public sector and politicians we should view this as a good start and seek to make Norway a leading startup in the world.