We had the privileged opportunity to attend Slush 2011 hosted on November 2nd & 3rd. The event has come a long way in past years and so has Finnish entrepreneurship. There was a real feeling that Finnish startups are making strong progress toward global domination. Of course Rovio and Angry Birds are setting the pace with their announcement at Slush that they have had over 500 million downloads and plan to grow even more (view Arctic Startup’s article on this). Slush provided an acid test in terms of progress, as this year the seven finalists of the 100 startups pitching competition produced top class pitches. Peter Vesterbacka the Mighty Eagle of Angry Birds remarked  “This is the first year that I have not been embarrassed by any of the pitches” 🙂

Slush itself was well organised thanks again to Timo Airisto and his partnership this year with Aalto Entrepreneurship Society under the guidance of Miki Kuusi and his team. The new layout of keeping all the action in the main hall made for a great atmosphere. You could quickly review a number of startups presenting their companies and products/services at their stands, nip over to see startups pitch on the other side of room, grab a coffee and head down to listen to world class keynote speakers. The ground work for all this progress has been set some years back with both Timo Airisto & Peter Vesterbacka putting in a lot of effort to encourage entrepreneurship. They certainly can see the results of their efforts paying off, but we are sure they already have set the next goal even higher. If you missed Slush you missed the chance to witness Finnish Startups set out on the road to growth.

Read about the Slush 7 finalists from Aaltoes Blog: Introducing the top 7 startups of Slush100

Read how Finnish news covered the developments at Slush:  Finnish startups wow Valley crowd

View the Slush 7 winner Ovelin’s  product Wild Chords from the video below.

A big thank you to Timo for providing us with free tickets.

If you are interested in entrepreneurship join one of the entrepreneurship societies today. Join MetropoliaES on Facebook.