I think raise of startup culture in Finland is quite independent of Nokia's current fall, but Nokia's earlier success has been an ingredient for the raise of th

I think raise of startup culture in Finland is quite independent of Nokia's current fall, but Nokia's earlier success has been an ingredient for the raise of the current movement. The godfathers of this movement started their companies in late 90s in either mobile or gaming sectors and are now acting as angels and mentors or serial entrepreneurs. It's clear that Nokia's success did help mobile startups a lot. Success of gaming companies was independent of Nokia and was due to Finnish demo scene, but also for mobile gaming companies, Nokia's presence was an obvious benefit. However, the raise of the new startup movement in Finland started earlier than Nokia's problems became obvious. I think it's part of the same global startup movement that e.g. Y-combinator has been creating. As it's mostly cultural phenomenon, role models and blogs like Arctic Startup has played very important role. I was part of Jaiku that was acquired by Google, and although it was just a talent acquisition, many people have said afterwards that it really inspired them to become more interested in startups.