UKTI Finland announces the winners of Tech2UK
Finnish technology start-ups Plan Brothers and Diktamen are ready to take their business to the next level in the UK market.
Investment Envoy Mark Prisk talk at Slush 2014.
UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) Finland and British Embassy Helsinki are delighted to reveal the winners of the first “Take That Tech to the UK” competition. Following 48 submissions from companies in Finland and 19 from the Baltic countries, two technology companies were selected to grow their projects and to establish in the UK market. The winners are Plan Brothers and Diktamen from Finland. Both receive a full business set-up package to support their entry onto the UK market. Additionally, the two runners-up, Bliu Bliu from Lithuania and GoWorkaBit from Estonia, will attend next summer’s London Technology Week.
Arttu Vesterinen, Head of Sales of Plan Brothers, said:
This is where it begins. It’s like a plane speeding up to the tipping point to be able to ascend: that’s where we stand now, ready to conquer the UK market.
Niklas Elers, CEO of Diktamen stated:
In this competition, the people you meet and the networks you get are even more important than the actual prizes. These connections are worth their weight in gold.
Plan Brothers is a high-growth security industry start-up founded in 2012. The company delivers high-performance software for security and real estate management. Diktamen is a company specialising in the optimisation of dictation, transcription and management of workflow solutions for hospitals.
The technology sector in the UK is one of the largest wealth creators and saw the fastest pace of growth over the past few decades. The UK market offers technology companies in Finland and the Baltics exciting opportunities for international expansion. With this competition UKTI has been encouraging the next generation of technology entrepreneurs to select the UK as their preferred location where they can set up and grow their business.
Mark Prisk, MP, UK Prime Minister’s Investment envoy for the Nordic and Baltic countries who chaired the competition jury expained:
When organising the competition we were looking for brilliant minds from Finnish and Baltic tech companies that were ready to up their game and step out onto the world stage via the UK. And I’ve been delighted to discover how many dynamic tech companies there are in Finland and the Baltics
We received a fantastic range of proposals which went far beyond our initial expectations.
The ten shortlisted companies, Bliu Bliu (Lithuania), Booxmedia (Finland), Diktamen (Finland), Ecolane (Finland), Etuma (Finland), Flyvice (Finland), GoWorkaBit (Estonia), Plan Brothers (Finland), Transfluent (Finland), TribaLearning (Finland) chosen by external advisors pitched their concepts to a top-ranking UK jury during a dinner at the British Ambassador’s Residence in Helsinki. Plan Brothers and Diktamen won over the jury with their innovative approach, the relevance of their product and services for the UK market and their potential for business growth in the UK.
The competition was organised in Helsinki to coincide with Slush 2014, the largest startup conference in Northern Europe. Mr Prisk addressed the gathering on the first day about UK as the port to global markets. UKTI had a very visible presence at Slush, where a real red double-decker bus served as the UKTI stand and meeting room during the conference.
For more information about the UKTI services, please visit UKTI’s webpage.