EXPERIENCE THE HEART OF THE
STARTUP ECOSYSTEM
Slush 2021 brought together 8,800 of the most brilliant founders, investors, operators, executives, media, and talent. That's a recipe for serendipitous magic.
NETWORKING. ENHANCED.
At its core, Slush is about the startling change that can be achieved through tens of thousands of meetings that happen over the course of the Slush Week. The laser-lit hallways are tread by startups in search of partners, tech companies looking to do business, and talent on the hunt for opportunities. Our state-of-the-art Matchmaking Tool allows you to screen and meet people effortlessly and efficiently.
“Everywhere you walk here at Slush, you walk into someone who wants to change the world.”
Pär-Jörgen Pärson
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SPEAKERS
BARE-KNUCKLE LEARNING
Our approach to content is straightforward: brutally hands-on, honest like nowhere else. To that end, we gauge whom to bring on stage by one predominant metric: what concrete advice can they bring to the table. The result? A dissection of how to grow a business, delivered by people who have built some of the most successful companies on the planet.
Here’s who took the stage in 2021.
Tony Fadell
Tony is Principal at Future Shape, an investment and advisory firm coaching deep tech startups. Currently, Future Shape is coaching over 200+ startups innovating game-changing technologies.
Tony is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+ year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people’s lives.
He is the founder and former CEO of Nest, the company that pioneered the “Internet of Things.” Tony was the SVP of Apple’s iPod Division and led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Throughout his career Tony has authored more than 300 patents. In May 2016, TIME named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod and the iPhone as three of the “50 Most Influential Gadgets of All Time.”
About Future Shape
Founded: 2014 | HQ: France | Stage: Series A–Series B
Renate Nyborg
Renate Nyborg is CEO at Tinder. With over 15 years experience building mobile and subscription businesses, Renate joined Tinder in 2020 to lead its European operations. Now Renate is the first female CEO at Tinder.
Renate joined Tinder from Headspace, where she built and led its first international product and marketing team. She previously spent four years at Apple, where she led the App Store subscription business in Europe. Renate is also the founder of Pleo, a human-centric app design studio, and was the first-ever Global Director of Mobile at Edelman.
Renate is of Norwegian and Dutch origin and has worked in London, Silicon Valley, Stockholm, Paris, and Switzerland. She is a Philosophy graduate from the University of Cambridge. Renate currently lives in Europe with her husband, whom she met on Tinder and her three stepkids. She loves food, her piano, and music, and can often be found hiking or Nordic skiing around the Alps.
About Tinder
Founded: 2012 | HQ: United States | Funding: €682M | Industry: Social Media
Peter Carlsson
Peter Carlsson is Founder and CEO of Northvolt, a company on a mission to build Europe’s largest lithium-ion battery factory. Having raised €5.55 billion of funding to date, Northvolt works with the biggest automotive manufacturers in the world such as BMW and Volkswagen.
Before founding Northvolt, Peter worked as CPO and Head of Supply Chain at Tesla Motors. He left these positions at the end of 2015 to become an entrepreneur, advisor, and angel investor. Prior to Tesla, Peter worked as Chief Product Officer in several notable companies such as NXP (former Philips Semiconductors) and Sony Ericsson.
Peter holds an M.SC. in Economics, Production, and Quality Control from Luleå Technical University.
About Northvolt
Founded: 2016 | HQ: Sweden | Funding: €5,55B | Industry: Energy
Luciana Lixandru
Luciana Lixandru is Partner at Sequoia, where she focuses on enterprise and consumer technology companies across Europe. Luciana works closely with companies like Xentral and Getir, and is passionate about helping founders at all stages to unlock their potential and think on a global scale.
Prior to becoming Sequoia’s first partner in Europe, Luciana worked at Accel for eight years, where she led investments in UiPath, Deliveroo, Miro and Hopin. She has also held positions at Summit Partners and Morgan Stanley.
Luciana holds a B.S. in Economics and Mathematics from Georgetown, and currently resides in London.
About Sequoia Capital
Founded: 1972 | HQ: United States | Stage: Seed–Growth
Guillaume Pousaz
Guillaume Pousaz, is Founder and CEO of Checkout.com, the leading payments technology firm he launched in 2012. Driven by the belief that financial complexity is a barrier to innovation—and, therefore, economic prosperity—he founded Checkout.com to cut through the complexity and empower businesses to change the world.
Checkout has since become one of the most valuable private fintech companies in the world. Its customers include Shein, Patreon, Moonpay, and Grab, as well as many of the largest fintech companies such as Wise, Tansfergo, and Curve.
About Checkout.com
Founded: 2012 | HQ: United Kingdom | Funding: €755M | Industry: Fintech
Sarah Wang
Sarah Wang is Partner at Andreessen Horowitz where she focuses on late stage venture investments across enterprise, consumer, FinTech, and bio.
Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz, she was a Vice President at TA Associates, a global growth equity firm that has raised €27.4B since 1968. Sarah also served on the board of DiscoverOrg/ZoomInfo, which scaled to €295M of revenue in the enterprise sales and marketing intelligence sector. Before TA, Sarah was an early stage investor at DCM Ventures and Radicle Impact. Her career started at Boston Consulting Group and Morgan Stanley Global Capital Markets.
Sarah holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she was a Siebel Scholar and Arjay Miller Scholar. She holds a BA in Economics from Harvard. Sarah grew up in the midwest across North Dakota and Chicago.
About Andreessen Horowitz
Founded: 2009 | HQ: United States | Stage: Seed-Growth
Jessica Ennis-Hill
Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill is Co-founder of Jennis. She is not only Olympic Champion and 3 x World Champion heptathlete but also a campaigner for women’s equality and body literacy. Through the Jennis CycleMapping programmes in the Jennis Fitness app – Jess is spearheading a drive to help women understand their hormones and how they can work with their bodies to achieve better health and fitness. Our aim is to empower women to become body literate.
Jessica is using her public profile to drive the conversation around the gender data gap – particularly in terms of women’s health. Jennis is working to find ways to provide women with clear and accessible information on the physiology of a woman’s body and how working in line with our hormones and recognising the uniqueness of our own bodies we can make a real difference to our fitness, reduce PMS symptoms and increase our body literacy.
Jessica is a mother of two children.
About Jennis
Founded: 2019 | HQ: United Kingdom | Funding: €1.17M | Industry: Health
Jonathan Lai
Jonathan Lai is Partner on the consumer investing team at Andreessen Horowitz where he focuses on games, crypto, and social. Today, Jon serves on the board of Elodie, Mainframe Industries, Mountaintop, Singularity 6, and StarStock.
Before joining Andreessen Horowitz, Jon led the North America games investments team at Tencent. Prior, Jon was a product manager at Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, where he shipped the Riot API and Merch Store before the company was acquired by Tencent. He started his career in investment banking for Morgan Stanley.
Jon graduated from Harvard University with an MBA and BA in Economics, and lives in the Bay Area with his family.
About Andreessen Horowitz
Founded: 2009 | HQ: United States | Stage: Seed-Growth
Lila Ibrahim
Lila Ibrahim is COO at DeepMind, a London-based research community building safe AI systems. At DeepMind, Lila oversees both technology and organizational infrastructure including Engineering, Operations, and People.
Originally a microprocessor engineer, Lila has helped grow some of the world’s leading technology companies including Intel, venture firm Kleiner Perkins, and Coursera, where she was the first executive hire.
Lila is Co-founder and Chair of education technology non-profit Team4Tech. She has previously served on the Board of Gannett, helping it become the largest US print media company. Her exceptional impact has been recognized by a Henry Crown Fellowship from the Aspen Institute and the Anita Borg Institute Award for Social Impact.
About DeepMind
Founded: 2010 | HQ: United Kingdom | Funding: Acquired by Google | Industry: Enterprise Software
Arvind Gupta
Arvind Gupta is Partner at Mayfield. He co-leads Mayfield’s Engineering Biology practice, investing in transformational companies. Arvind was the first investor in breakout companies such as Geltor, Synthex, Prime Roots, NotCo, Prellis, New Culture, DNA Lite, and Upside Foods.
As Founder of IndieBio, Arvind redefined early stage biotech, investing in over 136 companies, growing the IndieBio portfolio’s value into billions of dollars. Prior to founding IndieBio, Arvind was Design Director at IDEO in Shanghai. Arvind is also the author of Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner.
Arvind is a BASE jumper and big wall climber, and now fights submission grappling. Arvind holds 8 patents and is married to an Icelander and has two daughters. He holds a BSs in Genetic Engineering from UCSB.
About Mayfield
Founded: 1969 | HQ: United States | Stage: Early Stage
Sujata Bhatia
Sujata Bhatia is COO at Monzo, the UK neobank on a mission to make money work for everyone.
Before joining Monzo, Sujata was a Senior Vice President & GM for Global Merchant Services Europe at American Express. In her early career, she was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company in London and worked at Goldman Sachs and Ernst & Young.
Sujata holds her MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business. Originally from Boston, Sujata resides in London. Even so, she remains an avid Boston sports fan.
About Monzo
Founded: 2015 | HQ: UK | Funding: €622M | Industry: Fintech
Nicolas Julia
Nicolas Julia is Co-founder and CEO of Sorare, the fantasy football platform building a revolutionary gaming experience that sets a new standard for how fans worldwide connect to the clubs and players they love.
Prior to co-founding Sorare, Nicolas was the VP of Operations at Stratumn – a SaaS software developer for large companies. He holds an MSc in Management from EM Lyon and an MSc in Economics from the Hanken School of Economics.
About Sorare
Founded: 2018 | HQ: France | Funding: €671M | Industry: Gaming
Christina Cacioppo
Christina Cacioppo is Founder and CEO of Vanta, a leading security and compliance platform backed by Sequoia Capital.
Born in the Midwest and based in Silicon Valley, Christina Cacioppo sits at the intersection of security, tech, and business. After starting her career in early stage VC at Union Square Ventures, Christina went on to lead product management for Dropbox Paper, bringing the product to market. With Vanta, the Y Combinator alum is pioneering a continuous, automated approach to security monitoring.
Christina received her Masters in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and has taught Entrepreneurial Design courses at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. In her spare time, she reads books, runs with no destination, and cooks Sunday dinners for friends.
About Vanta
Founded: 2017 | HQ: United States | Funding: €48M | Industry: Cybersecurity
Andrey Khusid
Andrey Khusid is Co-founder and CEO of Miro, a collaborative whiteboard platform. Miro currently has over 20M users around the world, including 95% of the Fortune 100 companies.
Prior to Miro, Andrey was Founder of Vitamin Group, an award-winning creative agency.
About Miro
Founded: 2011 | HQ: United States | Funding: €68M | Industry: Enterprise Software
Linnéa Kornehed
Linnéa Kornehed is Co-founder and CMO of Einride, a Swedish company focusing on all-electric autonomous transport vehicles. Their mission is to design and develop intelligent technologies for movement. Einride has worked with several companies such as Coca-Cola, Oatly, Lidl and Electrolux, helping them switch to sustainable transport.
Einride has been recognized as one of the world’s most innovative companies according to Fast Company.
Prior to founding Einride, Linnéa worked as a Business Solutions Consultant at Forefront Consulting. Linnéa has twice been on Forbes’ prestige list of Europe’s hottest entrepreneurs and is also a TEDx speaker.
About Einride
Founded: 2016 | HQ: Sweden | Funding: €138M | Industry: Transportation
Michael Acton Smith
Michael Acton Smith is Co-founder and Co-CEO of Calm, the leading digital health brand for mental fitness, meditation, and sleep. Calm has grown to over 100 million downloads, was the Apple 2017 app of the year, and is the world’s first mental health unicorn.
Long fascinated by neuroscience, flow states, and mental fitness, Michael is passionate about spreading meditation as a simple yet valuable skill around the world.
Prior to Calm, Michael was Founder of Ping Pong Fight Club, and Berwickstock music festival. In 2014, he was awarded an OBE for services to the Creative Industries.
About Calm
Founded: 2012 | HQ: United States | Funding: €198M | Industry: Health & Wellbeing
Nazim Salur
Nazım Salur is Founder of Getir, a rapid delivery service company that distributes approximately 2,000 everyday items within minutes. With an established status in Turkey, where the company trends towards a super-app, and a United States launch behind it, Getir has expanded across 3 continents and delivers in 9 countries, making them the benchmark brand in the industry.
Prior to Getir, Nazım launched his first tech startup in 2012, BiTaksi, which brought people taxis in three minutes.
Nazım holds a BBA from Bogazici University.
About Getir
Founded: 2015 | HQ: Turkey | Funding: €924M | Industry: Delivery
April Koh
April Koh is Co-founder and CEO of Spring Health, a comprehensive mental health benefits platform for employers.
April has received honors from the American Psychiatric Association and has been featured in numerous news outlets such as Forbes 30 under 30. She is also a Yale Entrepreneurial Institute Fellow.
About Spring Health
Founded: 2016 | HQ: United States | Funding: €269M | Industry: Health
Bucky Moore
Bucky is Partner at Kleiner Perkins, where he focuses on software and infrastructure investments. He is a board member and early investor in companies like Netlify, Materialize, Labelbox, Teleport, Rudderstack, Open Raven, Prisma, Calixa, and Codesandbox.
Prior to entering the venture capital business in 2014, Bucky was a member of Cisco’s Corporate Development team, where he executed on various M&A, investment, and partnership opportunities on behalf of its Data Center and Cloud Business Units.
Bucky holds a B.S. in Business Administration and Finance from the University of Southern California.
About Kleiner Perkins
Founded: 1972 | HQ: United States | Stage: Seed-Growth
Sophia Bendz
Sophia is Partner at Cherry Ventures. Sophia is based in Stockholm, where she brings her expertise in the Nordics, femtech, and marketing to the Cherry network. As a passionate advocate for diversity, Sophia also works to enhance diversity and inclusion across European tech.
Before joining Cherry Ventures Sophia played a pivotal role in the early days of Spotify as the audio platform’s Global Marketing Director. She helped launch the company in 56 markets. At the time, Sophia began shifting to VC and also began angel investing, having now over 45 companies in her portfolio. Eventually she joined Atomico, where she created their angel program.
About Cherry Ventures
Founded: 2013 | HQ: Germany | Stage: Early Stage
Quinn Slack
Quinn Slack is Co-founder and CEO of Sourcegraph, the company pioneering universal code search for dev teams and making coding more accessible to more people. Many of the world’s leading companies are Sourcegraph customers, including 3/5 FAANG, PayPal, Uber, Plaid, GE, Yelp, and Atlassian. The company is valued at €2.22B from Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Redpoint, and Craft Ventures and other leading investors.
About Sourcegraph
Founded: 2013 | HQ: United States | Funding: €210M | Industry: Software
Eileen Burbidge
Eileen Burbidge is Partner at Passion Capital, the pre-eminent early-stage technology venture fund based in London. She brings extensive operational experience to her investment activities gleaned from business and product roles at Yahoo!, Skype, Apple and elsewhere. On behalf of Passion, Eileen serves as non-executive director on a number of fast growing SMEs including Monzo Bank, Digital Shadows, Marshmallow and Butternut Box among others.
Eileen is also HM Treasury’s Special Envoy for FinTech appointed by the Chancellor, Tech Ambassador for the Mayor of London’s office and served on former UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Business Advisory Group as well as Chair of Tech Nation for 5 years. Eileen is also a member of the board of Dixons Carphone.
She was made an MBE for services to Business in June 2015 and holds a BSc Engineering degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
About Passion Capital
Founded: 2011 | HQ: United Kingdom | Stage: Seed and Early Stage
Andrew Reed
Andrew Reed is Partner at Sequoia, where he focuses on product and design-driven software and consumer companies around the world. Andrew represents Sequoia on its investments in Bolt, Figma, Loom, Productboard, Rappi, Snapdocs, Sourcegraph, Tourlane, Vanta, and Zapier, among others. He was also involved with Sequoia’s investment in GitHub that was acquired by Microsoft in 2018.
Before joining Sequoia Andrew has worked as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs. Andrew has graduated from Amherst College with distinction as a Bachelor of Arts.
About Sequoia
Founded: 1972 | HQ: United States | Stage: Seed-Growth
“We are here to understand what's going to be big.”
Mike Chalfen
THE FOREFRONT OF TECH
At Slush, you will find startups that are transforming a wide range of industries. Every corner of the event breathes an ethos of getting things done, unapologetically and efficiently. On display, you will find the technologies that are enabling this change. Moreover, you’ll be surrounded by hundreds of tech journalists waiting to break the next big stories.
“It seems to be the center of the universe in technology right now.”
Niklas Zennström
Don’t want to be just another face in the crowd?
Whether your company is looking to increase its brand awareness, generate new leads, collaborate with startups, find the best talent, or simply give something back to the employees, we’ll craft the right package for your needs.
A FULL WEEK OF ACTION
Slush is far more than just a two-day gathering. In fact, it is a constellation of hundreds of events happening all over Helsinki, and throughout the Slush Week. Best of all, our side events come in all shapes and forms. There is bound to be one featuring a deep dive into your industry or current bottleneck.
“I am really impressed with the level of organisation but also the level of involvement of the whole community.”
Neil Rimer
THE EVENT EXPERIENCE YOU WEREN’T EXPECTING
Slush is the largest technical production in the Nordic countries. The result? An immersive, unforgettable, laser-lit venue topped off with no end of quirks and oddities.
What’s more, each year’s venue is produced around a unique theme. This year, it’s Entrepreneurial Renaissance. You will have to travel North in December to find out the rest.