{"id":268157,"date":"2026-09-03T15:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klak.is\/?p=268157"},"modified":"2026-09-21T16:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:16:19","slug":"its-been-a-week-with-techbbq-behind-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/frabaer-vika-a-techbbq-ad-baki\/","title":{"rendered":"Great week at TechBBQ behind us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around forty Icelandic companies, funds and institutions attended TechBBQ in Copenhagen on 26\u201327 August, one of the largest startup conferences in the Nordic region. KLAK \u2013 Icelandic Startups hosted the Supernovas of Tomorrow event, where six of the ten Startup SuperNova teams presented their solutions to international guests.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TechBBQ was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen on August 26-27, attracting over ten thousand visitors, more than 1,500 investors, around 3,000 startups and over 340 speakers. The conference has become one of the main gathering places for the Nordic innovation ecosystem \u2013 and this year the Icelandic presence was unusually strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Icelanderstofa led the delegation, which consisted of around forty Icelandic companies, investment funds and institutions. Among them were Crowberry Capital, Frumtak Ventures, Kr\u00eda, Kerecis, Kara Connect, DTE, Taktikal, Hefring, Humble, Kvekija, PLAIO, Swapp Agency and KLAK \u2013 Icelandic Startups. The Icelandic booth C2-019 became the group\u2019s home base for both days, and the day before the conference, the Icelandic Ambassador to Denmark invited the delegation to a networking event at the Ambassador\u2019s Residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supernovas of Tomorrow<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The highlight of KLAK at the conference was the event Supernovas of Tomorrow<\/strong>, which took place on the Green Grill Session stage in Hall E on the first day of the conference. It gave teams from Startup SuperNova a platform to present their solutions to investors, partners and guests from all over the Nordics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six of the ten teams in the current accelerator took to the stage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Appfold<\/strong> \u2013 a personal software platform that creates, hosts, and shares apps with artificial intelligence, without programming skills.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Comenius<\/strong> \u2013 an artificial intelligence-driven management system for schools<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • FreightFlow<\/strong> \u2013 digital platform for freight forwarding and freight forwarding<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • MAGNEA<\/strong> \u2013 artificial intelligence for price forecasting for seafood exporters<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Ogma<\/strong> \u2013 a solution that supports children's language development with artificial intelligence<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Sinope<\/strong> \u2013 artificial intelligence that simplifies compliance and certification processes for startups<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    For teams three weeks into the accelerator, the experience of pitching internationally is invaluable. Not only do they get practice in compressing their story into a few minutes for an audience unfamiliar with the Icelandic market \u2013 they also get their first real feedback from investors and partners outside of Iceland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201e"Getting to take the Startup SuperNova teams to TechBBQ during the accelerator was a great experience. There they got to step outside the Icelandic market, present their ideas to international parties and have their first conversations with investors and potential partners. This is exactly what we are proposing for the Startup SuperNova teams \u2013 to give them a platform to think bigger, both in Iceland and abroad," says Magn\u00fas Da\u00f0i Eyj\u00f3lfsson, Project Manager at Startup SuperNova.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Alumni participated<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The event was not just for the teams in Startup SuperNova 2026. PLAIO<\/strong> and Swapp Agency<\/strong>, two companies from the KLAK alumni network that were both part of the Icelandic delegation, gave five-minute presentations. They demonstrated in practice what happens when an idea that has been through an accelerator is given time to grow, and gave the teams in the room a concrete picture of the next steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This combination, of early-stage teams alongside companies that are several years ahead, is at the heart of how KLAK works. The network is not something that teams are handed at the end of the accelerator, but a community that they join.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Icelanders in the conference areas<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The Icelandic presence was wider than at the KLAK event. Sandra Mj\u00f6ll J\u00f3nsd\u00f3ttir-Buch from F\u00f6nn and D\u00f3ra Hl\u00edn G\u00edslad\u00f3ttir from Kerecis both gave talks in the Life Science x Deep Tech section, where Kerecis traced its growth story from Icelandic fish farming to the international tissue medicine market. Andri Geir Arnarson from Humble participated in a panel at the Nordic\u2013India Startup Summit, Kveikja led a grill session on artificial intelligence and equality, and on the second day, J\u00f3n Ingi Benediktsson from the Ministry of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education sat in a panel on the Nordic financial environment. Tobba Vigf\u00fasd\u00f3ttir from Kara Connect discussed growing in the strict regulatory framework of the European market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Nordic mapping introduced<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    A new report was also presented at the conference, State of the Nordic Innovation Ecosystem<\/strong>, which KLAK worked on in collaboration with SISP, Smart Innovation Norway, TechBBQ, Startup Estonia and Maria 01, at the initiative of Nordic Innovation. The report is based on a mapping of 898 organizations, 74 interviews and an analysis of more than 21,000 startups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The conclusion is clear: The Nordic region is among the world's leading innovation regions, but startups often move out of the country when it comes to the growth stage. The problem is not a lack of ideas or talent \u2013 it's fragmentation. Companies in one of the world's most powerful innovation regions still face six separate markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The sequel<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    For KLAK, TechBBQ was both the "big stage" and a work week: meetings with investors, conversations about collaboration with other Nordic sponsors and conferences, and a number of new connections for the teams in Startup SuperNova.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Startup SuperNova is now continuing at full speed back home in Gr\u00f3ska, where funding and investor conversations are at the forefront over the next few weeks before the teams present their solutions at the accelerator's harvest festival. More information about the accelerator and KLAK's work can be found on our website.

    Startup SuperNova is a six-week business accelerator run by KLAK \u2013 Icelandic Startups in collaboration with Nova and Huawei with support from Gr\u00f3ska.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Um fj\u00f6rut\u00edu \u00edslensk fyrirt\u00e6ki, sj\u00f3\u00f0ir og stofnanir s\u00f3ttu TechBBQ \u00ed Kaupmannah\u00f6fn 26.\u201327. \u00e1g\u00fast, eina st\u00e6rstu sprotar\u00e1\u00f0stefnu Nor\u00f0urlanda. KLAK – Icelandic Startups h\u00e9lt \u00fear vi\u00f0bur\u00f0inn Supernovas of Tomorrow, \u00fear sem sex af t\u00edu teymum Startup SuperNova kynntu lausnir s\u00ednar fyrir al\u00fej\u00f3\u00f0legum gestum. TechBBQ var haldin \u00ed Bella Center \u00ed Kaupmannah\u00f6fn dagana 26. og 27. \u00e1g\u00fast og […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":268163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"wds_primary_category":230,"wds_primary_project":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[],"project":[],"birta":[],"class_list":["post-268157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-startup-supernova"],"acf":{"tengd_verkefni":[17402]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268157\/revisions"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verkefni\/17402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268157"},{"taxonomy":"project","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project?post=268157"},{"taxonomy":"birta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klak.is\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/birta?post=268157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}