The Norwegian Startup Scene

For the first time since the internet, Norway has a startup scene of relevance. Nurtured and developed further it could grow to a point where it can be relied upon to create the modern cornerstone companies  we need as a country to stay competitive in the digital era.
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The Norwegian start-up scene was pioneered by the likes of Opera, Fast, Visma, Meltwater and Autostore who paved the way through the 90s and early 2000s - then the financial crises sparked a generation of new startups like Kahoot!, Oda, Gelato, Xeneta and reMarkable. These formed the core of the modern Norwegian startup scene as the international startupscene exploded. The oil dip in 2016 further accelerated the establishment of a modern startup ecosystem in Norway with fantastic rising stars like 1X, Dune, Enode, Portal One and many many others.
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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) built the startupscenes first work- and meeting places. Then Shifter (est 2015) created the first news site and Antler (est 2018) built a global venture capital company.
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These and hundreds of other sentral startups, investors, ecosystem initiatives and individuals have built the modern startupscene 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 nation of international importance. 

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