Helsinki’s startup scene evolved around behemoths such as Nokia, games giant Supercell, and food delivery platform Wolt. It’s reaping the rewards with experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and engineers powering a lively scene based around the Aalto University campus and the startup festival Slush, one of the world’s largest gatherings of investors …
Read More »The Hottest Startups in Madrid in 2024
Having spent many years as second fiddle to Barcelona, Madrid surpassed its Catalan cousin in 2023 with startups securing €605 million ($672 million) investment above Barcelona’s €457 million ($507 million). “Lots of Latin American talent is arriving thanks to the recent entrepreneur visa and talent programs run by Telefonica to …
Read More »The Hottest Startups in London in 2024
In the “Start-Up, Scale-Up” review report published last year, chancellor Rachel Reeves promised to make Britain the “high-growth startup hub of the world.” Now, almost six months into the new government, entrepreneurs remain encouraged by the promises made in the Labour manifesto. “The ambition embodied in Great British Energy and …
Read More »The Hottest Startups in Dublin in 2024
Thanks to low corporation tax and government incentives, Dublin has hosted the European headquarters of many large US technology companies—Google, Meta, LinkedIn and Microsoft all have offices in the city’s Silicon Docks. “The big US companies operated independently of the startup world for many years,” explains Will Prendergast, partner at …
Read More »Big Tech’s New Adversaries in Europe
If the past five years of EU tech rules could take human form, they would embody Thierry Breton. The bombastic commissioner, with his swoop of white hair, became the public face of Brussels’ irritation with American tech giants, touring Silicon Valley last summer to personally remind the industry of looming …
Read More »Apple Must Pay $14.4 Billion to Ireland in Crackdown on ‘Sweetheart Deals’
Apple has been ordered to pay €13 billion ($14.4 billion) of back taxes to the Irish state, in a court ruling that ended a decade-long fight between Europe and the big tech company. In a judgment handed down on Tuesday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) agreed with a European …
Read More »Ski Resorts Are Stockpiling Snow to Get Through Warm Winters
It’s time to check on the snow pile. In mid-August, Marko Mustonen, commercial director of Levi ski resort in northern Finland, logs on to a live webcam view of an elongated heap of snow snaking down a hillside. He shares his screen with me on Zoom so that I too …
Read More »Apple Hits a Major Roadblock as EU Targets App Store
Apple has become the first Big Tech company to be charged with breaking the European Union’s new digital markets rules, three days after the tech giant said it would not release artificial intelligence in the bloc due to regulation. On Monday, the European Commission said that Apple’s App Store was …
Read More »Europe Scrambles for Relevance in the Age of AI
When a Finn talks to an AI helper like ChatGPT, they often get the sense that something is subtly wrong. “You really feel that this conversation is not the way that you would have a discussion in Finland,” says Peter Sarlin. For a start, Finnish people are known for a …
Read More »The EU Is Taking on Big Tech. It May Be Outmatched
This story originally appeared in WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian. The latest in a series of duels announced by the European Commission is with Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. Brussels suspects that the giant based in Redmond, Washington, has failed to properly moderate content produced by the generative …
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