Ever seen an elevator pitch in a sauna? Finnish entrepreneurs talk Startup Sauna

As part of my ‘Date With Hermione‘ series, I’m getting loads of interesting date scenarios for interviews including a request from four entrepreneurs, Nils Paajanen, Juhana Nurmio, Riku Lindholm and Juho Kokkola (from left to right), from Finland who wanted to talk about the Finnish tech scene and startup accelerator Startup Sauna.

They suggested we set up the video in a sauna and do it in traditional Finnish style, which means, no clothes, but being tech entrepreneurs our laptops were around to save our modesty.

One of Finland’s biggest, recent success stories is gaming app Angry Birds and as startup fever hits the world I wanted to talk about some of the hottest startups coming out of Finland.

Startup Sauna is a seed accelerator program run in Helsinki, Finland. It gathers the best teams from Russia and Northern Europe for a 6 week long intensive program. The teams receive funding as well as coaching and mentoring to develop their ideas further. The best of the companies are brought here to Silicon Valley to meet investors and customers and lean Valley culture.