Slush Kicks Off Today With More Than 13,000 Attendees from 79 Countries

HELSINKI, November 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Slush, one of the leading startup and technology events in the world, kicks off today with more than 13,000 attendees from 79 countries. The two-day event held in Helsinki, Finland brings together more than 3,600 companies from around the world, one third of which are startups with less than 50 employees. Largest countries by attendance are Sweden, Estonia, Russia, China, Germany and the UK. 

Slush kicks off today in Helsinki, as the Prime Minister of Finland takes the main stage to welcome the event's international audience to the Nordics. A total of 1,396 startups have registered for the event with more than EUR 1.2 billion in annual revenues and EUR 900 million in funding, while they are reportedly looking to raise EUR 2.3 billion more. These companies employ a total of 15,000 people with hopes of high growth in the coming years.

In the recent years, Slush has grown to become one of the largest investor and media events held this year in Europe, with over 750 registered investors and more than 700 media representatives. This is more than double the amount from last year.

Political attendance at this year's Slush includes Prime Minister of Finland, Alexander Stubb, Prime Minister of Estonia, Taavi Rõivas, Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China, Wang Yang, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Arkady Dvorkovich as well as Minister of State for Digital Affairs of France, Axelle Lemaire.

Slush is a non-profit event with more than 1.300 volunteers helping set up the event this year, while the event production side of Slush is set up by a total of 600 professional technicians. Slush 2014 is also the largest technical event production ever put together in Finland, now surpassing even the Eurovision song contest organised in Helsinki in 2007.

TWO DAYS AND FIVE STAGES 

This year's Slush hosts more than 300 speakers on five different stages, including names such as Hiroshi Mikitani, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of the Japanese Internet conglomerate Rakuten, Wang Jian, Chief Technology Officer of Alibaba Group, Taizo  Son, co-founder and chairman of the Japanese gaming juggernaut GungHo and brother to the Softbank founder Masayoshi Son, as well as Martin Lorentzon, co-founder and chairman of the Swedish company Spotify.

Slush's early-stage pitching competition features a hundred startups selected from over 900 applicants companies, who will be pitching in three rounds at the event. As a highlight for the pitching competition, one company will receive an investment of EUR 250,000 from a group of Finnish angel investors, including names like Supercell's first angel investor Jari Ovaskainen. This is the single largest prize ever given to a company in a similar competition.

ABOUT SLUSH 

Slush is a two-day startup and technology conference organized yearly in Helsinki. Slush brings together international investors, startups and media from all over the world. Slush is a non-profit event put together by an organisation of 1,900 people, including 1,300 volunteers.

This year is the seventh edition of Slush. The first event was organized in 2008 with only 200 attendees. Ever since, Slush has grown significantly to meet the today's dimensions. Last year there were 7,000 attendees from 68 countries. This year's event was preceded by a world tour, which included events organized by Slush in 71 cities in 43 countries, including a Nasdaq closing bell ringing in New York.

"Our dream is to build Finland into a similar place for international growth companies and technology as Cannes is for motion picture or Milan for fashion. When the biggest CEOs from both Asia and the US visit us regularly, we have reached the goal," says Miki Kuusi, Chief Executive Officer of the event.

Slush website: http://www.slush.org

MORE INFORMATION 

Tiina Liukkonen

Communications and PR

+358-44-032-33-22

[email protected]

SOURCE Slush