Thousands of people are heading towards Pasila, Helsinki this week to join Slush, one of the largest startup events in the world.
At Vainu, we analyzed 1,000+ startups joining the conference and picked some interesting verticals and companies to keep an eye on.
Circular Economy & GreenTech
In a sign of the importance placed on environmental issues throughout society at large, an increasing number of businesses have begun to prioritize the incorporation of sustainability throughout their business models. GreenTech and circular economy are two such categorizations of businesses. GreenTech utilizes environmentally-friendly production processes or supply chains, whereas businesses adopting a circular economy model to production and consumption focus on the sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling of existing materials and products for as long as possible. Despite these differences, businesses in both categories share a common goal: tackling global issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
Circularise
Country: Netherlands
What they do: Circularise facilitates a shift to a circular economy by digitising and tracing materials across complex supply chains on a public blockchain without risking confidentiality.
Founded: 2016
Employees: 16
Cirplus
Country: Germany
What they do: cirplus is the global marketplace for recyclates and plastic waste feedstock.
Founded: 2018
Employees: 24
Claims Carbon Institute
Country: Sweden
What they do: SaaS carbon footprint calculations on insurance claims - helping decarbonizing insurance
Founded: 2021
Employees: 3
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in these verticals:
Circular Economy: 2,252
GreenTech & ClimateTech: 23,546
Identity Management
Falling under the umbrellas of IT security and data management, identity management is an essential component of any business’ technological security protocols. Identity management refers to the organizational process of identifying users, authenticating their identity, and establishing the level of access and permissions that a particular user has on a particular system, which is achieved through the association of user rights and restrictions with established identities. The main goal of identity management technologies is to ensure that users are only granted access to the specific applications, systems, or IT environments for which they are authorized.
Authenteq
Country: Germany
What they do: an identity verification platform that allows organizations to verify a user’s identity in real-time. Fully automated and powered by AI, over 8,000 government-issued photo IDs from 193 countries can be verified as authentic in under 35 seconds.
Founded: 2015
Employees: 16
Keyless
Country: UK
What they do: Enhance customer and employee experiences and protect their privacy through passwordless multi-factor authentication that eliminates fraud, phishing and credential reuse.
Founded: 2019
Employees: 50
Nect GmbH
Country: Germany
What they do: A solution for fully automated online identification, which has already been used by nearly half of all Germans at insurance companies, banks, telecommunications companies and the federal state.
Founded: 2017
Employees: 61
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in this vertical:
Identity Management: 1,916
Digital Twin
A digital twin is a virtual model designed to accurately reflect an actual physical object or process and serve as its real-time digital counterpart. The real-time data that gets transmitted between the physical object and its virtual model has a number of advantages, such as granting the ability to study the physical object’s condition and performance, which allows for the generation of insights that can be applied back to the original physical object. In this way, digital twin technologies improve the efficiency of manufacturing and maintenance processes, allowing operators to reduce equipment downtime.
Oculo
Country: UK
What they do: Apply elements of SLAM and photogrammetry to create an automated process that documents the construction site and creates a 3D model that can facilitate collaboration.
Founded: 2019
Employees: 12
Mind Bank AI
Country: USA
What they do: A platform that solves humanity's personal development and ageing challenge by creating a personal digital twin of your knowledge using a simple chat interface and structured learning algorithms.
Founded: 2020
Employees: 6
Infinite Foundry
https://www.infinitefoundry.com/
Country: Portugal
What they do: 3D digital twin platform that virtualizes 3D industrial production lines for improved efficiency of any industrial sector.
Founded: 2017
Employees: 13
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in this vertical:
Digital Twin: 402
Food & FoodTech
A branch of food science, food technology concerns itself with the production, preservation, quality control, and research and development of food products. FoodTech is by no means a new industry, with revolutionary processes such as pasteurization serving as iconic examples of how technology can be used to advance the overall state of the food industry. Nonetheless, in recent times, the industry has been experiencing a surge in popularity as a growing number of businesses began to explore how technology can be leveraged to improve the efficacy and sustainability of the design, production, delivery, and enjoyment of food.
Rebl Eats
Country: Finland
What they do: Basically cooking a better world, through plant-based versions of iconic dishes. Tasty, healthy & sustainable.
Founded: 2021
Employees: 11
Cropt
Country: Serbia
What they do: Develop advanced solutions based on artificial intelligence and big data analytics to make agriculture greener and more efficient.
Founded: 2019
Employees: 4
Babaco Market
Country: Italy
What they do: a subscription e-grocery platform that saves ugly&odd foods from producers and delivers weekly boxes directly to customers' homes.
Founded: 2020
Employees: 13
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in these verticals:
FoodTech: 1,150
RestaurantTech: 745
AgriTech: 6,119
EdTech & E-Learning
Educational technology aims to improve instruction and learning through the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of learning materials using technological resources, processes, and systems. E-learning refers to learning that is based on the utilization of electronic technologies, giving access to the education outside of a traditional classroom. Ultimately both technologies seek to improve the learning experience and the outcomes of teaching.
Learnlink
Country: Norway
What they do: Teaching kids how to code, with virtual courses inside Roblox and Minecraft.
Founded: 2016
Employees: 78
imagiLabs
Country: Sweden
What they do: Building EdTech gaming platform targeting 300 million pre-teen girls worldwide to encourage them to start coding.
Founded: 2018
Employees: 23
Kide Science
https://www.kidescience.com/en/
Country: Finland
What they do: A research-backed, play-based STEAM education program for teachers of 3-to-8-year-old scientists everywhere.
Founded: 2017
Employees: 22
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in these verticals:
EdTech: 24,574
E-Learning: 42,586
Digital Health & Wearables
Digital health encompasses a wide array of technologies that collectively work to enhance the efficiency of healthcare delivery and the improvement of medical outcomes. Ranging from mobile medical apps and software to artificial intelligence and machine learning, digital health tools have the potential to support the clinical decisions made by doctors on a daily basis, such as improving healthcare providers’ ability to accurately diagnose and treat disease. One such technology is wearable technology, also known as “wearables''. Modern wearable technology refers to hands-free electronic devices that incorporate a microprocessor and an internet connection and that can be worn as accessories, embedded in clothing, implanted in the user’s body, or even tattooed on the skin. Wearables can serve a variety of functions, ranging from microchip implants that can replace keys and passwords to devices such as the Cyrcadia Breast Monitor, which can detect early signs of breast cancer and transmit the information to a lab for analysis.
Vagus Health Ltd
Country: UK
What they do: ECG Smartwatch for health tracking and clinical trials. VAGUS® ECG helps you measure your breathing and true respiratory Heart Rate Variability (HRV).
Founded: 2017
Employees: 3
Nevaro
Country: Portugal
What they do: Develop digital health solutions for mental health management, based on clinically-validated gamification strategies and biofeedback.
Founded: 2020
Employees: 11
Vitalbeats
Country: Denmark
What they do: A software platform that delivers clinical decision support for cardiac care.
Founded: 2015
Employees: 19
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in these verticals:
Wearables: 6,130
Digital Health: 2,865
mHealth: 2,267
Robotics
An interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering, robotics refers to the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The term “robot” refers to programmable machines that can substitute for, or replicate, human actions. Originally, robots were created to handle monotonous tasks, such as car assembly line work, but, as the field has advanced, robots have now been able to replace humans in increasingly high-skill and intricate activities, such as assisting in surgical procedures. With the continued development of the artificial intelligence and software technology field, robots will only get smarter and more flexible.
fruitcore robotics GmbH
https://fruitcore-robotics.com/
Country: Germany
What they do: Highly optimized robotic systems technology
Founded: 2017
Employees: 80
Anarky Labs
Country: Finland
What they do: Disrupting the whole drone controlling concept by introducing Augmented Reality into the process and improving situational awareness and safety, enhancing productivity and enabling new use case opportunities.
Founded: 2020
Employees: 12
Rebartek
https://rebartek.com/
Country: Norway
What they do: Through automating rebar cage prefabrication, and tightly integrating their robots with the structural design software, they aim to tackle the growing demands for productivity, safety and sustainability in the construction industry.
Founded: 2018
Employees: 14
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in this vertical:
Robotics: 11,584
Last-mile delivery
Last-mile delivery is used in supply chain management and transportation planning to describe the last step of the delivery process, the transportation of packages from a transportation hub to the final destination, the buyer’s door. The last leg of the supply chain is often the most cumbersome aspect of the delivery process. As such, the goal of last mile delivery technologies is to ensure that the delivery of the packages is as affordable, quick, and accurate as possible.
Delivers.ai
Country: Turkey
What they do: Autonomously deliver food and grocery from shops to your doorstep by creating a new 1-mile delivery model using autonomous robots and unique autonomous driving and navigation software.
Founded: 2020
Employees: 29
Infinite Mobility
Country: Norway
What they do: Designing and manufacturing Electric Vehicles powered by Solar PV Cells.
Founded: 2020
Employees: 3
Hopp
Country: Iceland
What they do: A sustainable transportation solution that enables you to travel around your area without leaving a carbon footprint.Providing small business owners an opportunity to launch and locally operate their own e-scooter franchise business.
Founded: 2019
Employees: 13
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in this vertical:
Last-mile transportation: 337
Industry 4.0.
Industry 4.0, also known as the fourth industrial revolution, refers to the digital transformation of manufacturing. Building upon the inclusion of computers in the manufacturing process in the third industrial revolution, Industry 4.0 technologies allow computers to connect, communicate with each other, and make decisions in the manufacturing process without any human involvement. These technologies seek to make factories more efficient, productive, and less wasteful through the use of smart machines that can make better-informed decisions than their human counterparts.
Exalens
Country: UK
What they do: Enabling Industry 4.0 for digital manufacturing by spotting cybersecurity risks before they cause impact and improving operational resilience
Founded: 2015
Employees: 16
Mimetik UG
Country: Germany
What they do: A technology that allows you to precisely track hand motion in real time with negative latency. Industry 4.0 is one of their application areas.
Founded: 2020
Employees: 10
matriq AG
Country: Switzerland
What they do: A patented inline DynamicMold technology to mark all types of products made of plastics with a unique, individual, and forgery-proof code, be it QR codes, datamatrix, or custom-specific.
Founded: 2019
Employees: 15
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in this vertical:
Industry 4.0: 4,554
Streaming & Audio
Streaming refers to the delivery and consumption of multimedia content in a continuous flow over wired or wireless internet connection with little to no intermediate storage in network elements. This technology does not take into account the type of content being delivered, instead being concerned with the delivery method of the content. This differentiates streaming from audio technology, which is explicitly concerned with not just the delivery method, but the type of content being delivered.
Ferly
Country: UK
What they do: An audio content app that encourages folx to discover what exactly sex means to them—how they feel about it and how they have it.
Founded: 2018
Employees: 8
Legitify
Country: Sweden
What they do: An AI powered solution using audio-video authentication that allows customers to notarize documents online remotely from anywhere, without the hassle of visiting a notary public in person.
Founded: 2020
Employees: 9
Angle Audio
Country: Switzerland
What they do: Customized audio rooms in your website and app
Founded: 2020
Employees: 11
How big is this space? In our global company database we have identified the following number of companies in these verticals:
Music Streaming: 5,123
Audio: 16,262
