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'Ibiza of tech': Finnish start-up success brings Slush-inspired event to Australia

Latika Bourke

Helsinki: Queensland is set to host an offshoot of Europe's massive Slush start-up conference with hopes the event, also an X-factor-style talent quest for inventors, will become the "Ibiza of tech" for the Asia Pacific. Called "Myriad," the event is the brainchild of Estonian Martin Talvari, formerly of Slush, and Australian entrepreneur Murray Galbraith. The pair have been heavily backed with more than $2 million in funding by the Queensland Government through 2019, but Talvari said this was only the beginning.

"Anyone can run an event. This is about catalysing a movement. If people think we are building just another tech conference we've already failed," he said.

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Queensland will host an international conference called Myriad designed to connect investors with tech entrepreneurs in March 2017.

While start-up culture encourages failure early and often, Slush is nothing but a straight up success story. It began in 2008 with just six entrepreneurs in Finland creating meet-ups with like-minded inventors through professional "speed dates" and "inspirational talks."

But when the six handed Slush over to the Aalto University student community in 2011, the conference doubled in size every year until 2014, drawing industry heavyweights to its stage including big names from giants like Spotify, Tindr, LinkedIn, Flickr and Skype. In 2016 it reached its "critical mass" with 17,500 attendees, including 2336 start-ups, 1146 investors and 610 local and international journalists.

Myriad's first event will take place at the Brisbane Powerhouse at the end of March. In its first year, it will gather together 2000 entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists.

"Slush is like Ibiza for tech," Galbraith said. "The vital thing factor of Slush is the really powerful mix of suits and t-shirts — that is so hard to replicate," he said.

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"Without those collisions, this event is either just a bunch of students or a bunch of government people and that is totally useless. But to be able to bring those worlds together, you've got what my co-founder Martin refers to as 'deep pockets and open minds', and that is a powerful combination," he said.

Galbraith said the first Myriad would hope to be the "sunny south" version of the Finnish conference, named Slush because of the weather conditions in Helsinki in November when its held. He said he hoped to show that innovation didn't have to be a scary or foreign concept and was one way forward in diversifying the Australian economy.

"It's really about helping Mums and Dads and everyday Aussies realise that university is not the only path and that mining boom might be ending but that means it is just the dawn of a new era."

State Innovation Minister Leeanne Enoch said she hoped the conference would establish Queensland as the "Start-up State of the Southern Hemisphere" and the "the ultimate destination for start-up talent, business relocation and venture capital investment."

Myriad will also borrow from Slush in staging a talent quest for budding start-ups. In 2015, the Melbourne based CareMonkey won the global competition, with CEO Troy Westley's pitch beating 99 other companies.

CareMonkey was offered what was then the largest grand prize to date — an equity investment worth €650,000 ($983,467). CareMonkey opted to go it alone and raise its own cash and is now investing in a US and European expansion following two profitable quarters in Australia.

"Slush was the best conference I've been to by a million miles — and I've been to plenty over the last 25 years," Westley said.

"Winning a global event certainly did give us some extra media attention and also interest from investors.  Not because we won the pitching event, but because of the vibe and the learning and sharing and networking opportunities.. Slush is a 'must attend' event for serious start-ups," he said.

He said Australia was currently behind countries like Finland in supporting start-up and Myriad would help in addressing the shortfall. 

"For the startup industry in Australia it would be a great learning and networking environment with potential partners, employees and investors."

Slush CEO Marianne Vikkula says other countries, including Japan, Tokyo and Singapore have all asked to borrow the Slush model.

"It always comes from the locals, there's always a local need and the locals come to us. For example in Japan they came to us and said 'It sucks to be an entrepreneur in Japan, everyone expects you go to Mitsubishi when you graduate and then you work your way up to the leadership board and then you retire, and we want to change that and we already have Slush can we just use that?'"

Vikkula's advice for Myriad? "Slush has always been all about doing things together with a super positive can do attitude, and taking crazy risks along the way."

Latika Bourke is travelling to Helsinki as a guest of the Finnish Government.

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