From Silos to Ecosystem Collaboration

The Nordic innovation ecosystem is full of expertise, promising solutions and ambitious initiatives. Ignite Nordic works to connect that potential across organizations, regions and countries – helping move innovation from separate silos towards a stronger Nordic system.

Much of that work happens in the spaces between established structures: between startups and actual demand, between local innovation ecosystems and a Nordic market, and between an initial connection and a collaboration that can lead to implementation and business.

“An ecosystem is really about finding the relationships and connections that create value for innovation,” says Maria Olofsson, VP Ecosystem at Ignite Nordic. “If a project in Umeå has the same ambition as one in Karlstad, why shouldn’t they learn from each other, collaborate or connect their startups to customers in another city or country?”

Maria’s example illustrates the basic idea: a stronger ecosystem is not necessarily about adding more actors, but about creating better connections between the expertise, opportunities and networks that already exist.

Today, Ignite Nordic collaborates with more than 60 ecosystem partners across the Nordics. Together, they can help startups move beyond their local networks and gain access to customers, expertise and opportunities that would otherwise be difficult to reach.

A Different Role in the Ecosystem

Ignite Nordic is not an incubator, science park or accelerator, nor does it aim to replace the expertise that already exists within the innovation ecosystem. Its role is different: to connect and combine those capabilities around actual needs and opportunities.

That neutrality is an active position. Ignite Nordic does not represent a particular startup, region or solution. Instead, the process starts with a qualified need and an organization with both the interest and mandate to act. From there, Ignite Nordic can search broadly for relevant startups and bring in ecosystem partners with the expertise and relationships needed to help the collaboration progress.

Before a startup and a potential customer meet, Ignite Nordic works with corporates and public organizations to identify and qualify needs, scout relevant startups and prepare both sides for the dialogue. Ecosystem partners play an important role throughout that process.

For an incubator, Ignite Nordic can provide access to qualified customer opportunities, while its business developers know the startups and what support they may need.

“I often say that one plus one equals five,” Maria says. “We can find the customer, while the ecosystem partner can support the startup with business development.”

This is why Ignite Nordic describes ecosystem partners as co-creators, rather than suppliers. Different partners contribute different strengths, and the collaboration can range from identifying relevant startups and customer opportunities to thematic programmes, regional innovation projects and international expansion.

“The important thing is that there is a win-win. We need to understand what we can create together.”

Relationships Behind the Technology

Ignite Nordic has a database of thousands of Nordic startups, providing a foundation for scouting across regions, sectors and countries. But Maria sees the human network around that infrastructure as equally important.

“There are plenty of digital matchmaking platforms today. What makes us different is that so much of what we do is built on relationships.”

Those relationships create trust. Corporates and public organizations can share challenges that they may not be ready to communicate openly, while ecosystem partners can provide context about startups that cannot be captured in a database alone.

A business developer may know why a particular startup is relevant even when the connection is not obvious from keywords or technology categories. Ignite Nordic, meanwhile, can help ensure that the person meeting the startup has a genuine need and the mandate to move forward.

Maintaining those relationships takes continuous work.

“It is messy and constantly moving,” Maria says. “People change roles, new organizations come in and new projects start. You have to keep investing in the relationships.”

Trust, transparency, mutuality and low barriers are therefore central principles in Ignite Nordic’s ecosystem work. The aim is not to make every partner work in the same way, but to understand how their different strengths can complement one another.

From Local Networks to Nordic Systems

The transition from Ignite Sweden to Ignite Nordic has created new opportunities for those connections.

A startup that has successfully piloted a solution with a Swedish municipality may find that organizations in Norway, Finland or Iceland face similar challenges. Regional initiatives can learn from each other, while startups gain access to opportunities beyond the ecosystems where they first developed.

“When we start talking about the Nordics, we suddenly have a critical mass of startups,” Maria says. “We can open doors to customers in other countries, find synergies between initiatives and also create a stronger entry point for global actors.”

The Nordic perspective also gives Ignite Nordic the opportunity to connect ecosystems that might otherwise operate largely within their own regions. Rather than building new structures around every challenge, existing capabilities and relationships can be combined across geographical and organizational boundaries.

But Maria believes the next step goes beyond connecting individual startups and customers.

Many of the challenges society is facing require a system innovation approach, where entire value chains, organizations and technologies move together.

“We need to think more in systems,” she says. “If we talk about radical innovation or transformation, it often takes more than one small company meeting one large organization. There are more actors involved.”

This is where Ignite Nordic’s position between different parts of the innovation ecosystem becomes particularly important. By starting with a real need and mobilizing relevant startups, partners and expertise around it, Ignite Nordic can help actors build on what already works instead of starting again from scratch.

“If something has worked in one municipality, there are 289 others in Sweden facing many of the same challenges. How do we scale that? How do we learn from each other?”

The answer will rarely belong to one organization.

For Ignite Nordic, that makes deeper ecosystem collaboration increasingly important. The ambition is to work with more partners across the Nordics, connect capabilities across regional and national boundaries and create more opportunities for startups to reach customers and turn promising solutions into implementation.

Because stronger innovation ecosystems are not built by adding more actors. They are built by making the connections between them work.