The Danish Tech Tour, which took place August 27th-29th, 2003, was evidence of the entrepreneurial spirit in Denmark, with 24 startup companies presenting at various locations. Boasting a very technology adapted population, Denmark ranks among the top 10 worldwide with regard to PC, Internet, broadband and cell phone penetration. In addition, Denmark has a very flexible labor market, a key driver for entrepreneurs and startups alike.

According to Stefan Hansen, managing director of the Nordic Technology Forum, “Danish companies are good at developing products and getting them on the market. They are, however, not good at getting the products onto the international market.” With approximately 60 VCs and investors, mainly from Scandinavia and Europe, attending the Tech Tour, the 24 companies received valuable foreign exposure, boosting their chances of expanding their markets outside of Denmark.

Denmark is well known for its biotech technology companies mainly located in the so-called Medicon Valley, the region including Copenhagen in Denmark and Skåne in southern Sweden. Another area of expertise is wireless, with the Department of Communications at Aalborg University leading research in that field. RTX Telecom, which was founded by three engineers in the Aalborg area in 1993, is one such Danish success story in the wireless communication business. It has been listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange since June 2000 and currently employs approximately 240 people.

Of the 24 companies presenting, six were directly or indirectly involved in the semiconductor industry: AudioAsics (founded in 2003), Nanion (1999), Enigma Semiconductor (2001), Capres (1999), Hymite(1999) and Synergetic Computing Systems (2000). Synergetic Computing Systems was one of two Danish companies making the Tornado100 list that features Europe’s top 100 emerging private tech companies The other 18 companies were a mix of the various sectors within the ICT and life science industries.

A spirit of carefully expressed optimism in the VC market prevailed at the Tech Tour. Steen Lohse, Managing Director of Vertex Management (UK) said “the Germans and Swedes are looking to Denmark at the moment, so something must be happening.” Other investors expressed the opinion that the bottom of the downturn has been reached. Some of them were of the opinion that things would stay flat for some time still, while others indicated that a change was taking place and investments were starting to happen again. All investors had become very careful during the downturn and expressed that they would only invest in well-established companies – no one was willing to risk seed or first round funding yet.

The Tornado Insider representative at the Tech Tour received overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees, who expressed their satisfaction with the very high quality of the presenting companies and the overall organization of the tour. It was two days with a full program from dawn to midnight and the voluntary organizers of the Tour were definitely proof of Finn Helmer’s theory that, with an individual tax rate of approximately 45 percent, Danes work for fun, not for money.