Eric Eikrem’s Blog

In a recent article [se-1], the Swedish information technology news site IT24 identifies 4 interesting investment prospects in the ITC sector; Episerver, Fox Technologies, Nimsoft and Qliktech. They all have experienced fast growth, include valuable IP, and have a quite impressive list of clients. The 3 first companies have participation from the Nordic VC fund Northzone, while Qliktech’s most important investor is the Swedish fund Industrifonden.

• Episerver: Offers a range of content and community management products and services. It is highly profitable and have just reached 3000 customers. According to the company, the EPiServer CMS – is the world’s fastest growing commercial CMS platform. No wonder they are going public [en-1]. Third parties are continually adding modules and features [en-2].
• Fox Technologies: Delivers advanced access control, servers, applications and desktops, with centralised access controls management across the IT infrastructure.
• Nimsoft: Fast-growing supplier of unique solutions for the management and measurement of service levels, including levels in cloud computing.
• Qliktech: Business intelligence software with a wide range of applications for different sectors and company sizes. Impressive growth in revenue and number of clients. IPO-ready.

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On May 19, the fourth edition of the “Entrepreneur’s Day in Galicia” (“O Dia do Emprendedor”) was held in the Congress Palace of Santiago de Compostela,. It is an event promoted by the Galician Institute for Economic Development (IGAPE) and BIC Galicia, in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade. The main objective of this day was to “make visible, to recognize and promote entrepreneurship as an engine of economic development, generating innovation, job creation and social cohesion.“  Over two thousand people attended the event, a number significantly higher than previous years. For the first time attendees were offered individual consultations, and more than 300 people made use of the service. Read more

Most developed countries have policies for innovation and economic development at the national, regional and local level.  In particular, there are usually policies in place covering SME creation and also support for the growth of clusters. On the regional and / or local level, there is often a focus on certain sectors and image-building activities that are geared towards attracting talent in these sectors. Some policies can be counter-productive. Read more