Come and witness the test of the 16 meter tall and 1,200 kg propellant heavy Heat 2X engine in the new 160 ton VTC-3 test stand. The danish space pioneers want to verify the performance of the TM65LE engine. The rocket is strongly secured to the ground of the former shipyard B&W dock area.

Even though visitors will not witness the rocket flying off, they will not be disappointed because smoke, loud noises and special rocket sausages will take care of the entertainment. After the ignition of a 90 second full burn test, visitors have the chance to get a close look of the rocket stage.

The second test launch will be an extraordinary experience, so do not miss it! Stay updated on CopSub’s web side , in case of any changes or delays due to weather or technical conditions.

When? Saturday May 31st: 11:00 CEST – Live webcast begins; 12:00 CEST – The audience area opens; 14:00 CEST – We ignite the HEAT2X engine
Where? Refshalevej 189, 1432 København K
More info and eventual last minute changes? check out Copenhagen Suborbitals’ webside or their blog
Tickets? check them out here

The post COPENHAGEN SUBORBITALS is doing it again: TESTING OF THE BIGGEST AMATEUR ROCKET on MAY 31st! appeared first on Øresund Startups.

We started out talking about his background – and how the idea came to be.

So Martin, tell us how you got to this point where you are now with Conferize?

I have a background in the humanities and I did my Master Thesis in the early 2000s as kind of a small research project at a place called Learning at Denmark, which conducts a lot of research into learning. I shared an office with some researchers who did a really cool project called The Learning Meeting, which was finding more effective and engaging meeting formats for professional events and meetings. I helped them a little bit with articles and industry research.

During his time there, he got some very interesting insights into the industry that is meetings and conferences.

I discovered that the meetings industry is huge, almost twice the size as auto manufacturing. It’s also a big industry in Copenhagen, where we’re ranking very high on international meetings per capita. Most people don’t realize it’s a DKK 20 billion industry in Denmark alone. So I got a sense of the industry’s financial footprint, but also realized what an important role it plays in the knowledge economy. It’s very much still at professional events that new knowledge, research and products take center stage. It’s also where we conduct the networking that makes us successful in the workplace.

He also explained why he believes meetings and conferences are so important – and the role he sees them play in the society.

I think of professional events as the backbone of the knowledge economy, and I believe this industry will stay big, as meetings in the real world won’t be replaced with technology anytime soon. I also believe even more sponsor money will be poured into events, especially in the US, as meetings present so many unique opportunities for marketers to facilitate real interaction with potential customers.

But Martin is not only Conferize. He has a past in the startup scene, being one of the co-founders of the highly successful startup Issuu.

How did Issuu fit into the picture?

In 2006, I was partly pursuing an academic career and had attended a lot of conferences, both academic and professional. It was very clear to me that conferences produce unique and irreplaceable value, but I also realized a lot of things could be improved around how the interaction and knowledge sharing is facilitated. The same year I was granted an international PhD fellowship. But we also managed to raise almost $ 2 million around the same time to start what soon became known as Issuu, which is now probably the world’s leading online publishing platform. I was a co-founder there 2006-2011, and I learned a lot about how to build a global online platform for a legacy industry.

And how did you get the idea of Conferize after Issuu?

It was certainly a crazy ride. And I thought – wow – where else could I try and do that, and I naturally came to think of meetings because that interest was never lost. For instance, in 2008 at Issuu, I made a big list of events I should attend or sponsor. I spent two weeks googling and searching on these crappy web portals, without ever getting the overview that I wanted. I realized there’s this humongous industry right in front of us – which plays this crucial role in culture and business – and not even Google knows how to find it! That’s just insane and wrong, right?

He elaborated on how he decided to start a new startup, while Issuu was still growing a lot.

In 2011 Issuu had grown to be massive and I thought it was time to do something else. I couldn’t think of a better and more rewarding thing to do than to start Conferize. So I found my tech co-founder Martin Wulffeld and we just started prototyping with no money in our pockets, and got into DEMO which is a big launch event in Santa Clara. We were really lucky to get in, out of 1,000 participants only 70 get to present their product. We didn’t even have a product at that stage and it’s called DEMO because you can’t show slides. That’s how the first pre-alpha version was made, made really fast in a few months and that’s what we demoed. Martin built the very first product near singlehandedly, and that’s no small feat considering the amount of data we’re handling. He’s one of the best all-round developers I’ve ever met.

Later came our two awesome co-founders, Jesper Vestergaard, an old colleague friend and product director, who I persuaded to quit his job before we had raised any money. And my good friend and former Issuu colleague Jon Schäffer, who’s by far the best business developer I’ve worked with. We bootstrapped a long time and gradually closed a small seed round last year from brave investors who share our big product vision.

But Conferize is not just Martins personal story, it is also the product itself. We wanted to know some more about how it is going for the startup. They have been in the press many times, and are mentioned in together with other renowned startups. But that does not always reveal how it is actually going.

How many users does Conferize have right now?

Around 3.5 million and growing fast. This is just from 12,000 events, which is a strong indication of the volume and engagement that events produce both in the physical and online world. You can follow people you know and care about, to see which events to consider. Or you can of course search and get a very structured overview of relevant events just for you.

But Conferize has more unique features.

There’s also the networking part, where you can actually assess an event based on the people who attend it and how excited they are about it. If you’re going to the event, you can filter out the people you shouldn’t miss. Most events I attend never get this right, even after I pay the ticket. Unless they’re on Conferize, of course.

Finally, there’s the content side of things. Coming from publishing, it was amazing to dive into another content producing industry, that 99 % of the times did not have a digital strategy for that content. And if you consider events to be where new knowledge often comes into our culture, it’s very radical to think about what the world would look like if you have structured access to any presentation, paper, video etc. coming from events. That’s the big picture of Conferize. Instead of attending an event five times a year, you will keep up with the people and industries you care about, five times a week. And from that you’ll be inspired to attend more events, some of which you’ve probably never even heard about. That’s the beauty and simplicity of our business model – helping increase awareness and attendance at events, and we’ve proven that it works.

We are now in a really unique position in the market, but it also took us some heavy lifting and a few million lines of coding to get here.

Some impressive numbers, reaching 3,5 million users. We wanted to learn more about challenges along the way.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in the past 6 months?

In the beginning it’s always uphill with a startup, that’s a given. But it’s mostly been good. We are doing no marketing, and we have more than doubled the number of events coming to us, and the majority of them come back and refer others. So they really appreciate what we do for them, and more and more are paying for our freemium services.

Once people started buying our product there is of course a lot that follows. For example, invoicing, support, feature requests and stuff like that. I think it happened a little faster than we expected. But that is a positive problem, as long as you can still keep a focus on your big product vision.

What is one of the biggest discoveries you have made?

With all the events using us actively, we also had to make sure the product was truly stable and user friendly and that’s an ongoing process, of course. TEDxCopenhagen is a good example. They had tried to build longer-lasting communities around their infrequent events, but had failed to find the right platform to do this with. They liked Conferize so much, that they referred us to the main TEDx peole in the US. Now we have an official partnership with TEDx, so more of the world’s TEDx events will be available on Conferize, and we’ll help them spread their ideas even further through the community.

Being a global partner of TEDx is certainly no little feat. Martin also mentioned TED as an inspiration in the event sector.

For me TED is the gold standard of events, so it’s something I’m personally very proud of. TED was founded in ‘84; it was back then a very closed event, offline, hard to get in to. Now, with TEDx and how they embrace online platforms it’s become a movement, profoundly impacting hundreds of million of people. That only happened because they started opening up to the world. That is essentially what we do for events, and it’s an effective way of revitalizing this industry, that we love so much, in the online era.

You have mentioned TEDx but has anything else been a significant milestone for you?

Well, we were surprised to see Forbes mentioning us above LinkedIn and Twitter as the best networking platform for professional events. That’s some serious performance pressure. It’s also been encouraging to see how the top brands are actively using Conferize, such as AdTech, The Guardian, and Phillips. Normally it takes longer for a new platform to be embraced by the big guys.

Martin, tell us a bit what will happen in the next 6 month at Conferize, for example the change from Beta to Version 1 of Conferize?

One of the things I’ve been most excited about is that we finally have had the chance to put a stronger focus on the design of Conferize. Not just how it looks, but also how it works and what it does. After a very long search we found two awesome designers to help us solve what it actually means to take a conference online. In my opinion that’s an unsolved problem.

How do you create an engaging online platform for an industry that is essentially offline? And not only that, it’s an industry that’s somewhat locked in time and space, unlike for instance music and publishing that are free from those constraints. Looking at the event itself as a content object, it’s basically made up from all types of media and it has this highly specialized type of social interaction around this content. It’s all very tricky and complex.

Martin followed up by saying that until now, Conferize has actually only been a long beta. They are finally planning to launch the first real version, version 1. A big move of course, and with the new design it will definitly stand apart from the current version.

Version 1 of Conferize will be released this summer as we’re leaving beta. I can tell you a bit about it now but you’ll have to wait until it’s live to share it with your readers. It is very different from the current version, much more visual, much more modern, simple and beautiful. It’s focused on rich content that we’re able to handle in a radically different way now. We also have some pretty unique networking apps as well, designed to drive engagement.

What features are you working on at the moment?

So when an event comes to Conferize they will already today invite a lot of people to join the event community that they are building with Conferize. For instance last Monday we sent out about 5,000 emails on behalf of just a few events, so you can imagine we’re getting a lot of people on the platform.

So we’re thinking long and hard about what it actually means to be part of an event community? Of course, a big part of that is networking, see who you know, who should you meet, who should you follow, and so on. And part of it is content, showing the coolest presentations, the most interesting photos or videos. But we also made some new apps where we start collecting the ideas of the community. I think that is the most precious human resource: great ideas and the engagement around that. It’s a radical form of democratization of the event community, that’s been going on for the past decades, ever since open space, and that we’re now seeing with other formats such as the unconference phenomenon. We’re just hypercharging that development and making it easily available across the board.

Version 1 will have all these unique features of event communities and content structure?

One of the biggest technical achievements with the release is that we can serve a mixed media feed for an event that’s structuring information from around 20 or so content platforms, from Youtube to Instagram to Slideshare, and then rank it by interest. 10,000 tweets will be available if that’s what you want, but sometimes you just want to have the 5 best videos. We’re now able to serve that both on the event level and the level above that according to a special interest area.

Is there anything else that is important for you at Conferize?

And this is the learning aspect of Conferize that fascinates me so much. Let’s say you are interested in startups and you want to see what is going on in South America or elsewhere. Whatever your interest is, there is now a place to keep up with your passion, both in terms of content and social circles. It is highly dynamic, highly relevant, and completely unique. It’s of course never going to be the same as the real event, but certainly we’re going to connect you with many more events, many more people, and much more content than what previously was possible. That’s a good thing. And I think this is really the biggest achievement: unlocking the potential of this industry on a massive scale, and making it relevant in the digital world too.

This also became a discussion about analog versus digital, where some lessons learned from Issuu also are relevant for Conferize.

As with any other digital platform, not least Issuu, we’re often asked if we’re competing with the psysical events. And my answer is always the same: No more that a web shop competes with the physical store. Online and offline has proven time and again to complement each other, when they’re done right. We live in a digital world and no one wants to turn back the clock, so all industries needs to embrace the online world as well as the offline. If they don’t, they’re missing out on a great potential and may even become extinct.

The best marketing you can do for any great product is to actually give customers a taste of it. And that’s finally possible for events to do with Conferize: Show how great you are, don’t just tell it. We’ve proven that our content and community-building approach really helps sell more tickets and I’m just so excited to show people what we’re releasing this summer.

It was a pleasure to get to know Martin deeper, and his thoughts and plans for Conferize, as well having him sharing insights from his years as an entrepreneur.

If you want to know more about Conferize, sign up and try it out.

The post In-depth interview with Martin Ferro-Thomsen from Conferize: milestones & discoveries appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Sofia, How did you get the idea to create Owegoo?

The idea of Owegoo grew from my own personal experience with traveling. Since I used to work with web stuff my computer was my office and I could not stand the cold winters in Sweden so I usually took off in November or December to go somewhere warmer and work from there. First I only went away for about a month, then the longest I have been gone was 6 month.

Planing those trips though was very complicated and it was difficult to find out information about the destination, such as their infrastructure, cost of living and so on. For example, in Asia it is cheaper to rent a hotel than an apartment. So I got really annoyed and after 2 to 3 years I got the idea for Owegoo.

What are you working on right now?

Adding lots of content to the site and measuring how people use the site.

What were the biggest obstacle to overcome with Owegoo?

The biggest challenge was to convince travel agencies of Owegoo before the site was even up. They had to sign a contract based on trust. But they also had a hard time to imagine that unconventional way of booking holidays. It took a long time to collect contracts with travel agencies and to collect flight data. Now it has become easier, since the site is up and travel agencies don’t have such a hard time to imagine what Owegoo is actually about.

How was Owegoo financed?

Owegoo has an Angel investor and is also financed by the ALMI government loan program.

How do you picture Owegoo in the future?

Right now the site is just small fragment of what it will be. I imagine to add a lot more content to the site, such as the possibility to book hotels, more filters, let users create filters and let them tell their stories about their trips, more flight data for the US, more language options and so on, to simply expand the web side to its full potential.

Thank you, Sofia, for sharing your thoughts with us. And good luck for the future.

The post Interview with Sofia Franzén CEO of Owegoo! appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The startup

Foap has created an app that allows smartphone users and photographers to sell their photos online. Since its beginnings in 2012, Foap has greatly developed and has gotten a lot of media attention (abc news, CNN and many more) and is now known worldwide. David Los is behind Foap as co-founder and CEO. Recently there has been some changes at the startup as well, with co-founder Alexandra Bylund no longer having an active role to focus on other endeavors.

The spot

The abc news spot was broadcasted in the abc news series Real Money. The TV spot exemplifies how easy it is to make money with one’s personal snapshots on Foap. Abc news interviews Deanne Valorose who has made more than 300$ of a photo of people parasailing. But even with breakfast, sunset, sport, or nature pictures she has made money with the Foap app.
Due to the growing media attention and consequently a huge amount of new users, Foap has even experienced problem with their servers but this has been fixed now and new users are welcome to download and use Foap.

How does “Foaping”work?

Foaping is very simple; users of the app can upload their snapshots on the Foap platform, and companies can buy the photos for 10$ to use them for marketing. 5$ go to Foap and 5$ to the photographer. There is even a special section for “Missions” where companies can exactly describe the pictures they are looking for. Big companies such as Garnier, Nike, and Master Card are searching for pictures on Foap to use for their marketing campaigns. If you want to find out more and listen to David Los on another abc spot explaining Foap, check it out here.

Reaching media popularity in the US and having achieved a great visibility in the US app store, Foap can be proud of its fast growing customer base and growing recognition. Foap is a great example of a startup from the Øresund region that has made it successful overseas.

The post Double winner FOAP: top 20 in the US app store and prime time spot on US TV appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Why attend?

The conference is organized by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs; it attracts top entrepreneurs from the nordic region, angel investors, venture capitals, CEO’s and many more.

Its purpose?

The Nordic Startup Conference will host more than 400 entrepreneurs and investors, 3 keynotes speeches, and 6 distinct panels which will demonstrate the high quality that startups from the Nordic region can deliver.

What is on the agenda?

Interesting Panels on Emerging Nordic Technologies, Innovative Investing, Venture Capital in the Nordics, Success stories of Nordic startups but also failures and its role in startups, as well as, the Nordic Startup Ecosystem will be topics during this one day of intense conferencing.

Keynotes will be presented by Max Niederhofer from Sunstone Capital,Morten Strunge CEO and founder of OnFone, and Carl Silbersky angel investor of Polar Rose.

After the lunch break a Pitching Panel will take place with 5 startups that are handpicked and one of them will be awarded at the end of the day!

And finally, this exciting day is wrapped up with an after party including an open mic and tons of networking opportunities.

Curious? more info available @ the NSC web side
Want to join? register here
Where? Street Mekka @ Enghavevej 82D, 2450 Copenhagen SV, Denmark
When? March, 28th 2014 starting @ 8:00 am until Late

The post Nordic Startup Conference 2014 coming up March, 28th appeared first on Øresund Startups.

There will be live music, drinks, popcorn, great people to meet, and of course “kalas” (swedish for party!).

Minc is an incubator in Malmö. Having 200 applicant per year but only ten to be admitted, it was necessary to create another option for startup business. The idea of Minc StartupLab was born. It creates “free to try” offices spaces. This concept connects more experienced entrepreneurs and business consultants with newbies. Ideas can be shared and cooperation created. A great way to provide new startups without incubator with an alternative option to get their business ideas running. If you want to know more the Minc StartupLabs read more on Øresund Startups.

But this is not all that is happening @ Minc on February, 27th. If you are interested in joining the Minc/Talk with Kristian von Bengtson from Copenhagen Suborbitals you might as well come at 4 pm to listen to the creator of one of the more extreme startups. Copenhagen Suborbitals is a adventurous startup that aims at launching humans into space without any major government funding or government organization. They also have the first test launch for their amateur rocket Heat2X on March, 1st.

When? 27th, February @ 4pm for Minc/Talk and @ 5pm for the Minc/StartupLab Party
Where? Minc, Anckargripsgatan 3, 211 19 Malmö
More Info? check out the facebook event for the 4 pm Minc/Talk. Check out the Minc webpage for updated info on the Party.

The post Minc/Talk and Minc/StartupLabs Opening Party appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The program includes laser cutting, 3D printing, electronic sketching or exploring your creative potential in a 48h building workshop.

So if you are interested to join this inspirational weekend and want to discover your own creative self, get your tickets here.

Additionally, Bits and Beers offers a get together on Friday and workshops on Saturday and Sunday.

When? 28 February – 2 March, 2014
Where? Vesterbrogade 26, 1620 Copenhagen
More info? check out the facebook event

The post Join the MAKER Weekend in Copenhagen appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Finally, the hard work has paid off, and the first rocket engine test for Heat2X will be held on March 1st, 2014. It is the largest amateur rocket that has been build and tested until now. Join this amazing event and secure your ticket here the entry fee is DKR 100.

During the test, the 16 meters tall engine Heat2X will be set in motion and burn 1,200 kg of propellant. However, the rocket is secured to the ground through a thick slab of concrete in order for the Copenhagen Suborbitals team to make their measurements. But visitors will not be disappointed as they can witness smoke, and fire, and loud noises.

This will be an extraordinary event. You will have the opportunity after the test launch to take a close look at the rocket stage, as well as, you can buy special rocket sausages, soft and hot drinks, and chat with other supporters.

When? March 1st, 2014 @ 14:00 (doors open at 12:30)
Where? Refshalevej 189, 1432 København K
More Info? check out Copenhagen Suborbitals’ webside ortheir blog

The post Copenhagen Suborbitals: Amateur Rocket will be tested in March appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Trendsonline.dk has reported on the five finalist from Denmark that ran in the national competition: Labster, Ateo, M-PAYG, Discue and Roadrunner. They were pitching their ideas and innovations and presented how they have used the USD 2,500 in the last months. Not only qualified Labster for the international competition but also received a gift certificate from Billy’s Billing.

Labster is a startup business that provides schools and universities with virtual Labs to teach Life Science. The virtual lab makes it easier to understand scientific experiments. Mads Bonde and Maris Magdalenoks have started this projected and it has now already been tested in Danish as well as foreign universities.

We congratulate the winner and wish them good luck for the international Elance BIG IDEA Competition.

The post Labster qualified for the international Elance BIG IDEA Competition appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Firstly, The Pub Summit Kick-off presents three Danish Startups that have qualified for the pitch at the Pub Summit Kick-off. The winner receives a place in the PITCH competition (Europe’s largest pitching competition) at the Summit 2014. Furthermore, Anoop Vasisht from Seven Ventures will be a speaker at this event. Everybody is welcome to join and connect with great people.

Next, Startupbootcamp has the inauguration of their new facilities for the Copenhagen startupbootcamp. Having been an “old boiler room” for the SEB Bank, Startupbootcamp pimped the 800 m2 with graffiti, pallets, and punching bags. The party starts at 20:30 same location as the Pub Summit Kick-off. Everybody is welcome to party with startupbootcamp.

When? the Pub Summit Kick-off starts at 18:00 and the Startupbootcamp Housewarming Party starts at 20:30
Where? Landemærket 8, 1119 Copenhagen K, on the 1. floor
More info? check here for the Pub Summit Kick-off and here for the Party.

The post Copenhagen Startupbootcamp Pub Summit Kickoff and Housewarming Party! appeared first on Øresund Startups.