Fishbrain wins the Slush lightweight startup competition in Helsinki

Fishbrain , the social network that hopes to help its users catch more fish, has won the Lightweight category of the startup competition at the Slush conference in Helsinki.

If you’re wondering about Middle and Heavyweight contenders at the conference, they were not highlighted at the end of the event.

The organisers pointed out that the lightweight companies are right at the beginning of their journey and so the four finalists in this category were brought onto the main stage to make their final pitches.

When Fishbrain was announced as the winner, Startup Sauna chairman Ilkka Kivimäki said that the judges made their choice because the company already had an established product, experienced team and an existing customer base that the firm is clearly passionate about.

Swedish startup, Fishbrain is a social network for sports fishing. Currently in beta, the service allows users to upload pictures of their latest or greatest catch and there share congratulations, tips and tricks as well as analysis and data to well, catch more fish.

It’s a pretty tight audience at this stage, but if it proves to be successful, it could be developed to serve a selection of different verticals. That said, the businesses surrounding sports fishing generate millions of dollars and so advertising for this market would be a lucrative way to grow.

The other contenders in the lightweight final were varied. Doggifit is a personalised food and fitness service for canine friends, Health Puzzle is developing a mobile application to aggregate and analyze user’s health data and CatchBox is a plush cube with a microphone inside that can be tossed around a crowd at an event so that the audience can use it to ask questions and be heard.

The spread of sectors among the finalists shows the breadth of the startups at Slush this year. Though gaming and telephony were hitting the headlines, the Nordic and Baltic regions are coming up with fresh and interesting approaches to solve problems using technology.