Selling your business ideas from a frozen river

On 25 February, 20 companies will give elevator pitches to investors in Oulu, Finland. A pitching session like any other – except participants will be in swimwear and standing chest height in freezing water.

Polar Bear Pitching, the “the coolest stage on the globe for start-ups,” was a surprise hit at the launch event last year.

Entrepreneurs must slide into a bear-sized ice hole cut in the frozen Oulujoki river. Hats, gloves and shoes or socks are allowed but wet suits or thermal gear are not. Standing on the edge of the hole to hear hopeful entrants pitch through clattering teeth, will be a group of investors.

Along with entrants from Finland, start-ups from the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia will be taking part. Among them will be UK start up Braci, which has developed a smartphone app to aid the deaf and hard of hearing. From Finland, Music Field will be looking for cash for its music platform idea and Estonian start-up SportID will be trying to attract investment for its health and wellness service for employers.

Cutting to the chase

The contest may have an endearing silliness, but can investors really make funding decisions based on whacky pitches?

In fact, investors get exactly what they want: stripped of a podium, laser pointer and Powerpoint, entrepreneurs have a strong incentive to whittle down their pitch to the bare essentials.

“It’s a really good stress-test; it shows investors your mettle and dedication,” said Mia Kemppaala of Oulu’s Business Kitchen  incubator, who had the original idea for the format. Last year, 12 out of 20 pitchers received funding.

Usually, there are strict time limits for investor pitches, but not here. Entrepreneurs can sell their idea for as long as they can bear the cold, said Miia Maijala, one of the event organisers. The average time is one minute.

The winner last year lasted four minutes. “They trained for a month, lasting five seconds each day,” said Matti Rusila, a colleague of Kemppaala’s at Business Kitchen.      

 

The format

Aside from the chance of getting funded, most entrepreneurs are in it for the exposure. The frigid pitches will be filmed, streamed, and broadcast via social media.

Preparing for the event, organisers said the success of the first has made their task straight-forward this time around. “Our task is to keep up this great atmosphere,” said Kemppaala.

The concept has caught on. Norwegian organisers held their own version in the city of Tromsø at the end of January.

A small-scale version of the competition was test-driven in 2013 in Helsinki's Slush tech start-up conference before becoming a permanent feature in Oulu last year.

An unlikely tech hub

Back on dry land, Oulu has burnished a reputation as an unlikely hi tech hub, despite being the sixth largest city in Finland and 300 miles from the capital, Helsinki.

Its residents are quick to tout the ingredients of a success story. The city is Europe’s youngest, with an average age of 36 years, and is in one of the top five regions on the continent for R&D investment.

English is spoken widely, helping the city develop into an international edge. “The webpage for Business Kitchen is in English; we don’t even have a Finnish translation,” said Rusila. “It helps that rent is considerably lower here than in Helsinki too,” added Nataliya Shevchuk, project coordinator for the pitching contest.

The city, with a population of around 190,000 people, outperforms Helsinki in some key areas. A high concentration of technology and science researchers means the city produces a higher volume of registered intellectual property rights than the capital.

Good planning lies behind a lot of Oulu’s success. In 2007, a special expert panel proposed that the city build up an alliance, or public-private partnership, consisting of local officials, the University of Oulu, the Oulu University of Applied Sciences, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Technopolis, a technology centre.

Oulu made its name in electronic hardware, but the city has gathered more strings for its bow over the last few years, said Rusila. Indian tech giant Wipro, and Pulse, the US-based news-reading app, have all opened offices in the city.

And its impact on the software world is experienced by most people around the world every day: “You’re able to look at Youtube videos on your phone because of the work of a couple of guys in Oulu,” said Rusila.

Life after Nokia

Nokia, which opened research and development labs in Oulu back in 1985, has been a big employer in the city. But when the company was overtaken in the global smartphone race by Apple's hardware,and Google's Android software, many feared what would become of the highly skilled workforce.

Luckily, they stuck around. The company’s mobile business may have hit the skids, but Nokia is still a big player when it comes to making telecoms equipment. Today the Oulu branch is its biggest base, said Rusila.

“Everyone anticipated around 10-15 start-ups would form after Nokia shed almost 1,100 staff across Finland [including 500 from its Oulu unit],” said Shevchuk, herself a former employee of the company. But “Nokians” landed on their feet: more than 400 companies were created, she said.

More on the pitching contest here