We’re a quarter of the way through 2024 and already there are signs that it will be the year things get back to normal. CES 2024 in January attracted 138,789 visitors from around the world, with a record 1,442 exhibitors. MWC, the mobile technology extravaganza, in the last week of February attracted a record 101,000 visitors from 205 countries, creating a clear impression of a return to pre-COVID days. The same week as MWC saw the equally welcome return of Polar Bear Pitching for the first time since 2020.
Billed as the coolest pitching event in the world, which was literally true on a mercury-level basis, the event was arguably on a much smaller scale than what was happening at the same time in Barcelona, but it caught the imagination of mobile app innovation and artificial intelligence (AI), cementing the Finnish base’s reputation as a tech development hotspot despite its proximity to the Arctic Circle.
As Computer Weekly reported earlier this year, the city of Oulu is at the forefront of cutting-edge developments in telecommunications and networks, and is currently leading the way in research and development for the growing 6G mobile technology ecosystem.
Located at 65 degrees north latitude in central Finland, just over an hour’s flight from Helsinki, Oulu has 215,000 inhabitants and is growing by more than 3,000 people every year. It is Finland’s leading technology center. In 2022, Finland’s research and development (R&D) expenditures per capita will be 3,437 million euros in Oulu, 2,703 million euros in Vassa, 2,345 million euros in the capital Helsinki, and 2,169 million euros in Tampere. More than one-tenth of Oulu’s population is a university student, with an average age of 39.4 years. The city is also scheduled to be selected as the European Capital of Culture in 2026.
Oulu’s rise as a tech hub is essentially a case of overcoming adversity. The city was long Nokia’s home base of excellence, but faced great uncertainty when this communications technology and services giant ran into financial difficulties around 2011. After Nokia’s collapse, the city was home to thousands of highly skilled and highly educated communications engineers and other key knowledge workers wondering what to do next. What they did was leverage technology and entrepreneurial spirit to form a tech hub determined to succeed. It’s fair to say the local tech sector is now thriving.
The city, in addition to being home to the world-class University of Oulu (arguably very well equipped for mobile communications research), a large new generation Nokia research facility and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, is also where Polar Bear Pitching put down roots – or, more precisely, dug a hole in the ice and snow that covered everything in a sub-zero February day.
Polar Bear Pitching is billed as the coolest pitching event in the world.
Run by BusinessOulu and celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Polar Bear Pitching aims to “empower startups to demonstrate their resilience and commitment to the entire world through an unconventional platform.”
This year’s event brought 10 startups from different sectors and nationalities to Oulu to compete for investors’ attention and a prize of 10,000 euros to further develop their businesses. Held in parallel with Polar Bear Pitching, the IceTech Summit was a conference covering printed electronics, VTT’s expertise and AI, offering a unique northern experience from companies such as BusinesOulu, ICTOulu, iSoft.ai, Brightly Works and Silo AI. The agenda explored the fundamental technologies of large language models (LLM), their diverse applications and societal impact.
The 10 teams that competed in Polar Bear Pitching 2024 were from local startups as well as Japan, Iceland, Kazakhstan and Norway. The innovations and solutions exhibited covered sustainability, environment, circular economy and AI. The eight teams that will compete in the main event were selected by BusinessOulu’s expert panel, and two teams qualified by winning pitching competitions at satellite events held in Hokkaido, Japan and Kirkenes, Norway.
This presentation was completely unique: brave representatives from startup companies drilled a hole in the ice, jumped into the exposed icy water and presented their ideas to a panel of experts for as long as they could stand. After 10 participants had immersed themselves in the sub-zero water and warmed themselves up in a very hot bath, the first to jump in, Ola Pyikkonen, a medical leader at Natal Mind in Finland, was announced as the winner.
The first dive, and eventual winner, Ola Pyukkonen, medical leader at Natal MIND in Finland, plunged into the icy water.
Digital coaching during pregnancy
In its mission statement, Natal Mind says it focuses on gentle pregnancy and better births through Nordic methods. Through a mobile app designed for pregnant women and their partners, it aims to combine virtual maternity care and mental health supported by a Master of Laws program with a wearable device. The app works with wearable data to provide users with a personalized digital coach who suggests clinically validated psychotherapy techniques and physical exercises targeted to them. These exercises are intended to prepare them for birth and the postnatal period, as well as reduce fear and anxiety about parenthood, birth and the recovery process.
Currently, Natal Mind is a research-to-business project at Aalto University in Finland and funded by a public grant from Business Finland, a public agency under the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economic Affairs, with the goal of attracting trade, tourism and foreign investment and providing funding for innovation in Finland.
[Polar Bear Pitching] It was a great opportunity to prepare a presentation that was really condensed and focused, and the work and effort that we put into it really drove the whole business forward. Aura Pyykönen, Natal Mind
The company aims to spin off as a startup in 2024. In Finland, a national clinical trial on the effectiveness of the Natal Mind solution is underway in collaboration with Helsinki University Hospital. As part of the development, Natal Mind is looking for expansion partners to bring Nordic obstetric care to the global market. Potential partners include obstetric clinics, hospitals, academic institutions, insurance companies, investors and FemTech enthusiasts.
Natal Mind sees its business sector as sitting at the intersection of the postpartum depression market, AI in mental health, and the wearable device industry. In terms of the financial value of each of the total addressable markets (TAM), the company calculates that the current TAM for the postpartum depression market is $55.3 billion, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.4%, the TAM for AI and mental health is $12.7 billion, with a CAGR of 37.5%, and the TAM for the wearables industry is $931.3 billion, with a CAGR of 33.9%.
At Polar Bear Pitching, three lead partners represented the company. Pyykönen describes herself as an obstetrician-gynaecologist by profession and an entrepreneur at heart. Joining her is Riikka Lemmetyinen, head of psychology, who led group therapy sessions for patients suffering from intense fear of childbirth during her time working at the women’s clinic at Helsinki University Hospital; and Annika Järvelin, commercial lead, with a background in digital user experience design, business strategy, branding, and marketing. Her previous venture was a sustainable travel startup that took her on a global journey. The team also includes research lead Henni Tenhunen, product lead Wintom Zecarias, and content specialist Hanna-Mari Kuikka.
Doing healthcare the right way
In an interview with Computer Weekly, Pyikkonen, who is also a practicing physician, spoke about how the company was founded and why he launched the startup, saying his main driving force was his impact-driven mindset and passion for doing medicine the right way.
“I left my ‘safe’ hospital job in 2021 as I felt I was not able to provide the care I wanted to. I was spending more time in front of a computer than interacting with people. I was so busy attending to ‘urgent matters’ that I didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone or get a full picture of their problems. So I set up an online clinic for women with a holistic and compassionate approach,” she recalls.
“Annika, a former designer, was interested in women’s health and got in touch with me after seeing my online clinic, proposing to work together. Riika, a psychologist, worked with me on the online clinic Isla and has known Annika since she was a child. She immediately expressed an interest in doing something different together.”
Polar Bear Pitching is completely unique, a hole in the ice for startups to pitch their ideas.
Pyikkonen says that given the business environment he currently works in and the challenges his business faces, he strongly believes there is a need to find a scalable model of “low-level” care and support that frees up scarce resources where they are most needed.
“We decided to do research first and start a company second, mainly taking into account the local funding structure. We received so-called ‘research-to-business funding’ (700,000 euros), but this does not put a company first, but rather requires us to test and research the concept within a university environment,” she reveals.
From a technical perspective, the development of Natal Mind’s minimum viable product (MVP) was partially outsourced to a company called Healthware (Eversana), a leading provider of global commercial services to the life sciences industry, with two developers working on the technical development. The code has now been handed over to Mikael Högqvist, the team’s CTO, who is responsible for the development of the software together with Järvelin, who is in charge of the user interface and user experience (UI/UX).
Funding growth
With more funding, Natalmind plans to hire one or two more developers from 2025. Pyikkonen is confident that the market he sees as huge will grow rapidly, and that Natalmind is well positioned to grow proportionately.
“Our goal is to capture a small share of this big market, and we’re in a few different markets and there’s some overlap. [of the post-partum depression, AI in mental health and wearables market]Due to the small size of the Finnish market, the first commercial version will be launched mainly outside Finland, with the UK as the main target market.”
NatalMind plans to use the €1 million funding to cover the period between spinning off from the university and obtaining future investment.
The 10,000 euros from Polar Bear Pitching will go a long way in helping them achieve these goals. When asked why he thought climbing into the freezing water was a good idea, Pyykönen replied that the team thought it would bring great footage and publicity to the company.
“[Polar Bear Pitching] It was a great opportunity to prepare a really condensed and focused presentation. And the work and effort that went into preparing it really propelled the whole business forward. We plan to use this funding to bridge the gap between being independent from the university and getting future investments. We won’t do anything flashy, but this funding will go a long way to addressing technical issues during the transition period. We’ve come a long way to get to where we are now, but with the current investor environment being chilly, fundraising for the future still seems to be our main challenge.
Ironically, plunging into sub-freezing temperatures is helping startups weather the cold.
