‘Innovative Sweden,’ a weeklong event on the Stanford campus, began Wednesday with over 20 participating companies from Sweden presenting their business plans to attract Silicon Valley funding. The majority of the companies are in the fields of information and communication technology, gaming, life sciences and clean technology.
Among the companies presenting Wednesday was Nocturnal Vision, which builds software that improves the vision of video cameras in darkness or in low light situations. Tobii Technology introduced a form of user interaction following the user’s eye movement. Once the user interface has tracked eye movement, the user is able to select applications based on his or her eye movement. Another Swedish company, Saplo, introduced a new text analysis software. The software can be used to analyze individuals’ online statements in order to forecast trends. Much of the technology presented at the conference was designed for mobile phones.
While ‘Innovative Sweden’ plans to travel to other countries, the companies represented in the exhibition viewed Silicon Valley as a key destination for their products.
The ceremony began with speeches from Annika Rembe, director general of the Swedish Institute, and Arthur Bienenstock, professor emeritus of photon science at Stanford.
The afternoon’s agenda included presentations from Ericsson and Sony Ericsson on the future of the mobile phone industry. Tomas Bennich, the founder of the Sweden Mobile Association, moderated.
The evening’s agenda consisted of pitching sessions, titled “60-second pitches from Innovative Swedish startups for VCs.” Max Shapiro, CEO of PeopleConnect, served as moderator. A total of 25 Swedish startups in the fields of mobile technology, internet technology, social media, gaming and clean technology delivered one-minute pitches on their respective objectives and were given two minutes to answer questions. Seth Sternberg, CEO and co-founder of Meebo, and Nicolai Wadstrom, CEO and founder of BoostrapLabs, both discussed strategies for European startups to succeed in Silicon Valley.
— Marianne LeVine