All the drama aside, if nothing else Microtask got one the better investors in the region on their board. Nikolaj Nyholm of Sunstone will be joining their board. Nyholm belongs to the group of investors who have been on startup side of the table more than once and understand young startups better than most.

Microtask focuses on creating technologies that turn digital labor into a standardized commodity. They could for example work on digitalization and annotation of archives, verification of forms and user-generated content, speech transcription and validation of results of computer analysis. Anything that's menial, repetitive and boring.

Here's roughly the process:
1. Break down work into millions of tiny tasks
2. Distribute them over the net to a larger number of people
3. Verify the result, and return them to the customer

Microtask is a 2009 founded startup, which has currently 10 employees and an offices in Tampere (FI), Helsinki (FI) and San Francisco (US). It's owned by its founders Ville Miettinen, Harri Holopainen (CEO), Panu Wilska and Otto Chrons, Finnish Vigo accelerators Lots, Sunstone Capital  and a group of private Angel investors. The Angels include Paul Bragiel, Serial entrepreneur from San Francisco, Founder of Meetro, Lefora & I/O Ventures; Borgar Ljosland, Founder and ex-CEO of Falanx Microsystems (exited to ARM in 2006), Founder and CEO of FXI Technologies; Harri Hursti, IT security expert, author of the "Hursti Hack" and recipient of the EFF Pioneer Award; Ari Hyppönen, ex-CTO and board member at F-Secure Corp (NASDAQ OMX:FSC); Kaj and Mika Tuomi, Petri Nordlun (Founders of Bitboys, acquired by ATI in 2006) and Pekka Pättiniemi, CEO of Banco Santander in Finland. Pättiniemi is also a Microtask board member.

Three of the founders, Miettinen, Holopainen and Wilska, were together at Hyprid Graphics, which was sold to NVIDIA Corporation for € 30 million in 2006. Otto Chrons on his part was the founder and CEO of Ionific, which was later sold to Sasken for € million in 2006.

The company is still pre-revenue, but it's optimistic about the prospects and hopes to see the first revenues during the fall 2010. If they are ready to take on the market so are their competitors. CrowdFlower, CloudCrowd, HumanGrid each have closed roughly a € 3 million Series A. The market is clearly getting created fast and can develop into a very lucrative one once the models evolve into working processes and the clients and channel partners get familiar with the model.

Talentag, on the other hand, lets you create an online profile and then ask feedback from others that builds up your ‘social CV’. Your co-workers and friends can tag a you with words or a badge. They can also vouch for a particular role you have had. At the moment this is largely focused on pulling information from one's Facebook profile. Talentag also rides the lets-give-them-a-badge bandwagon, which more and more services have started to use after Foursquare made it famous. TechCrunch has also a nice analysis on the actual product here.

Despite a nifty idea and great effort from the team to enter this very profitable niche, I still think professional services like LinkedIn or Talentag don't mix well with what is the most personal of websites for most people, one's Facebook profile. At least not yet. It does not matter which way you try to mix these, whether importing Facebook and LinkedIn to Talentag or importing Talentag and LinkedIn to Facebook. People come to Facebook for a different reason and its not to pimp their resume. For this to change Facebook itself would have to start drive the service to a new more business mingle friendly direction, which they are unlikely to do. And Facebook is really the only network that matters if your strategy is to get to scale through an established closed platform.

Not only that, the learnings that Ulla-Maaria Engeström describes are very valuable in understanding how a thing can serve various kinds of discovery.

During the beta phase we also noticed that discovering new interesting things almost always includes other types of discovery. Sometimes things lead to other things, which again lead to places to buy or articles about the designer. Other times things can introduce us other people, and we are thrilled to discover aesthetic soul mates or fellow collectors. Old things can open us new horizons to ourselves, to our family, or to our cultural history. We at Thinglink found it important to support various kinds of discovery, not only commercial.

If you're a product person like I am, you understand the excitement I got from reading how the essence of a whole new product category can be discovered by building an understanding through user testing and iteration. It might be frustrating at times, but it sure can be useful. The applications of the findings are vast when the web marches further into the real world and the line between the two become more fluid. For the full account you can read the blog post here.

The service itself is quite simple. It's as simply as Bit.ly, but with Thinglink you tag images. You can do this even without registering just as you would shorten an URL at Bit.ly. Once you tag an image, you can link it to anywhere you want. Its ideal for media, photographers or anyone wanting to present things through photos online.

You can already see the product in full swing at the Finnish Elle and at a Finnish fashion blog Uusimusta (You can also mouse over the photos in this blog post to see how they are Thinglinked).

Ulla-Maaria is not the only Engeström working on the product. Ulla-Maaria's husband, Jyri Engeström (co-founder of Jaiku and former Product Manager at Google where he worked on all things social that Google was involved with) is the Head of Product at Thinglink. To fully grasp how to 'give things identity' it can't hurt to have Jyri Engeström driving the product development. Along with co-founding Jaiku, he also coined the term 'Social Object' in the web context. Janne Jalkanen, a Nokia longtimer and an NFC wizard also joined the company as a CTO some three months ago (see our story here).

There's a few ways I can see the company generating revenue with the service. Since the focus of the service is to enable object tagging in photos this could be quite nifty tool for any media who could subsequently generate affiliate sales through linking the objects to online stores or even sell those products themselves. Another way to monetize would be eventually through the accrued data base of information the company will have. This 'thing graph', as Ulla-Maaria Engeström calls it, will eventually be very valuable, but does not come quick. It takes considerable usage and time (think Facebook's social graph). But the simplicity that the team gunned for will help driving usage and also to distinguish Thinglink from its competitors whose services are more complicated to use.

Thinglink's competitors include a US based Pixazza, which just recently raised $12 million Series B round. Pixazza's pitch is build around 'AdSense for Images' and the pitch seems to be working at least for Google since the company got Google Ventures to invest along with Shasta Ventures, August Capital and CMEA Capital. The company don't comment on exact numbers but says that click through rates are significantly higher than regular banner ads. Other companies working in the space include Like.com, Image Space Media and GumGum.

The $12 million machine might intimidate at first, but its also a good sign that validates the market for Thinglink's new focus even though the company might adjust its course along the way when the service matures.

I, for one, am excited to see where the team will take the service and how this new space will shape up going forward.

We already covered one program that helps you to build a startup during the summer months. This one, the Summer of Startups, operates in Helsinki, Finland. Here's the spiel:

What is it:
An entrepreneurship program by and for entrepreneurial students - no school restrictions!

Details:
The program starts 1st of July and lasts until the end of August. Individuals taking part are offered 750 euro grant a month. In addition teams are getting an open office workspace and a personal mentor. Finance for this program offered by Tekes Tuli-program.

Now, these guys might say the teams are already chosen and the application period is over. Rubbish, I say. For all the real entrepreneurs this is only a minor detail and can surely be hustled around. If nothing else works, just camp out in one of the judge's front yard until they let you in. If you need to build a real business, a small obstacle like deadline will surely not slow you down in getting into the program.

Another similar-ish program runs in Copenhagen, Denmark and is called Startupbootcamp.dk. The program is also a TechStarts affiliate program. For this, you have grand total of two days to apply for.

What is it:
Startupbootcamp is a startup accelerator. We're not only modelled after TechStars (have had a casual relationship for a while) but recently became their first Global Affiliate. Affiliates are independent entities but get to tap into the TechStars know how and, more importantly, community. We're located in Copenhagen, cover northern Europe and so far have applicants from all over Europe.

More on Startupbootcamp.dk:
Applications close end June
Apply here
Runs from mid-August to mid-November
Investor Day is on November 16th

What a better way to spend a summer than tinker with a cool project around other cool cats? Oh, and did I mention you get a full blown startup of your own once the summer is over? Sounds like the best deal of the summer to me!

"Harvard spinoff promises genome sequencing for $30"

This was the headline from FierceBiotech Research, a biotech journal. It's also a game changing development for the industry as a whole and part of a bigger trend of personalized cancer medicine. The first time scientists sequenced a human genome it cost $ 3 billion. Then it went to $ 6 million (2006), then $ 60,000 (2008), in June 2009 Illumina pushed it to $ 20,000, Nov 6 2009 Complete Genomics promised $ 4,400. The prediction for the coming year? $ 1,000 in 2-3 years and further down to $ 100 in 5-10 years.

This is where a Finnish startup MediSapiens comes in. MediSapiens is the world’s first software for personalized cancer medicine in oncology clinics and new drug development. The company just recently completed € 0.8 million seed round investment from Veraventure, ETFIII advised by Eqvitec Partners, VTT Ventures and Lifeline Ventures.

MediSapiens hosts world’s largest unified gene expression database. This enables scientists to understand the role of human genes across all human tissues and diseases to be applied in helping oncologists on treatment strategy selection, and biopharmaceutical companies in developing next generation personalized medicines.

The latest research demonstrates that every patient’s cancer is a complex, personal combination of genetic mutations and abnormally expressed genes. The MediSapiens software gives personalized and clinically-applicable insight into each patient’s cancer.

I talked to Timo Ahopelto, a Lifeline Ventures partner, who is working as VP Strategy for MediSapiens to get my head around the emerging trend.

1. What are the big trends in cancer treatment personalization today?

First, cancer is a deadly and unbeaten disease. 1/2 of us alive today will get it, and 1/3 will die of it. There is lot to be done in the field of cancer medicine, and we need a major shift in today's diagnostics and therapies to win the battle. The main treatment strategies - chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy - are 50 to 100 years old already.

Second, cancer is a genetic disease on cellular level and we are just starting to understand it. This means that your genes - how they are mutated and how they work - define how your cancer develops. At the same time the latest research - such as The Cancer Genome Atlas funded by NHI - demonstrates that every cancer is a unique combination of these mutations and abnormal gene functions, and one by one for every patient.

This only leads to one conclusion being adopted by the industry: to treat cancer, every patient needs to be understood individually and on genetic level.

2. How is it done today?

Pathologists use microscope - for a genetic disease 10 years after we have sequenced human genome.

In addition, companies like Agendia and Genomic Health have developed dedicated chips that measure typically 20-80 genes for a single cancer type to support a single treatment decision. These tests stratify patients, they don't personalize medicine. For complex disease this stratification is not very optimal.

Very interestingly, the industry pioneers announced just some days ago from Foundation Medicine, a startup raising $ 25 million to bring genomics into routine use by oncologists. This is the next wave that MediSapiens represents: bringing through understanding on patient's genetic signature to clinic.

3. How can software and data change it?

No-one is using software and no-one is using large-quantity data. It is in fact amazing that all other industries are moving into software and medtech stays in hardware.

So how we work and how software can change this?

We can tell all genetic differences of an individual patient compared to world's healthy and cancerous patients.

We take industry-standard genomics profiling results of single patient, and analyze those against a reference database of 15,000 patients' genetic signatures and clinical outcomes. This is revolutionary -- as cancer is defined by how our 20,000 genes work, personally with everyone of us, the only way to understand the disease is to see what is broken with each patient, one by one. And a natural way to understand this is to compare statistically: it is like Newtonian physics (old school of cancer diagnostics) compared to modern physics (based on statistically understanding complex phenomena). Our benefit is to have all information available, all anomalies detected and against the latest science embedded into the software more flexibly than dedicated hardware units. Software can also visualize this to oncologist for clinical use.

Limited Partners or LPs, the people or institutional investors who invest their money in venture funds, are pulling away and the European investment climate is going from bad to worse. This is on one hand because of the dismal returns that the funds have generated and on the other hand because of the bloated management fees that some VCs collect without working much for their portfolio companies or for new deal flow.

Even if the general investment climate in Europe is getting darker Seedcamp is determined to make the early stage investing work in Europe. I talked with Reshma Sohoni, CEO of Seedcamp, at the Copenhagen Mini-Seedcamp about Seedcamp's past, present and future and what value they can offer for startups coming from the Nordics and Baltics.

Seedcamp model is to invest €50,000 in early stage startups in return for some  10 percent of equity. Beyond just the capital, they aim to connect entrerpeneurs with the best mentors across Europe, UK and US.

When asked about whether early stage investing works in Europe, which is very different from US since the European market is a path work of different nationalities, Reshma believes seed capital hasn't stayd up with the times: Entrepreneurs aren't staying put but moving to meet the demands of building a global business, but seed capital is still very local.

What Seedcamp really wants to do is to bring the Europe's best entrepreneurs together with the best early stage investors. This means they have to round up the best early stage investors first. They have started to do this already with SeedSummit that takes place in London and Reshma tells me that they have a big announcement coming on a new initiative to unify the best and the brightest of the European angel community. Reshma also told me that they want to make the Seedcamp model more international and double the number of investment they do from 7 a year to 14 a year. Already this year Seedcamp will expand into South Africa, India and Singapore to do this.

When asked about what are the key benefits that Seedcamp can offer for a startup, Reshma emphasized that Seedcamp positions a startup to grow into a global business really quickly. There are good local initiatives in Europe, but they tend to be insular in a way that does not help the company grow fast enough in the big markets.

I also wanted to know how Reshma would build a consumer web startup if she would not have significant experience and connections and would be like most of the young entrepreneurs out there. Here's her advice: "Make sure your startup has strong commercial and product persons in addition to a strong technical person. Get the product out right away (the lean startup approach). Get key influencers early on to live and breath your product. Really set miles stones - Short term and long term. Measure, measure, measure! And finally, get it to US." By this she meant a US presence is a must if you're building a consumer web company - Something I have said all along.

Lastly Reshma wanted to send a message to all the Nordic and Baltic startups and encourage all of you to apply for the Mini Seedcamp London, which is the last chance for startups to get a seat at Seedcamp Week will take place on 27th July 2010. You can apply here.

When I got the draft copy of the book I thought I would find it boring as I already know most of this stuff. How wrong was I. Come page 20 or so and I had lost track on time and didn't even notice how the war stories and historical accounts had sucked me in. Although admittedly you need to be into technology entrepreneurship  to find the book interesting, but given where you're reading this article I think you are just the right type.

The book can be read as a How-To guide on Silicon Valley, but also as a very interesting historical account on many Finnish firms. It becomes that much more interesting if you already know bit about the tech companies that the authors have chosen to showcase and interview. Most of our readers see familiar names to them including MySQL, Stonesoft, SoneraZed, Data Fellows (currently F-Secure), SSH, Solid, Hybrid Graphics, Animoi, Jaiku, Futuremark, Sumea, and many others. Actually, all the others.

The book is most useful for business-to-business startups and does not provide as much value for those aiming to hit big on consumer web, but there's a good reason for this. 99.9% of the successful ICT/Internet firms coming out of Finland has had a business-to-business focus and will have going forward. This is either unfortunate or fortunate depending on where you look at it, but its a fact that the European ecosystem does not have the DNA to produce big consumer web companies like the US does. Having said that, in the not so distant future many of the successful bigger consumer web companies might have European founders, be it Finnish, Swedish or otherwise - Entrepreneurs who live and build their companies wherever their customers are.

The book has much useful advice you wouldn't ever consider if someone would not tell you to specifically pay attention to it. For example a very very useful advice related to the location that goes many times without too little notice is the fact that whereas the time difference between FInland and the US East Coast is seven hours, whereas its ten between Finland the West Coast. The three hours can be life changing. It's just so much easier to communicate with a team when one does not have to stretch the normal day rhythm.

I can touch only the top of the iceberg here on the amout of advice the book gives. There's a ton of other useful information on issues like the very different role that the Lawyer plays for a startup in the Valley, the use of provisional patents, examples of average base salaries for ICT professional (Software Engineering Manager for $123,400-$160,000, anyone?), the role that good manners play (yes, manners!), insight on how sales work in the US vs. Europe, who to hire and much more.

If the advice is good, the war stories are even better and the real beef for me. They really do suck you in and keep you there. But there's nothing I could tell you in one blog post that would do justice to those stories, so you just need to read it yourself. You can download the PDF here. Go!

The service is an analytics platform for the live music industry and it should help bands, their agents and local promoters make better informed decisions on where bands should arrange concerts and tours. GigsWiz gathers fan requests through widgets that sit on the bands’ web sites and is looking to combine it with real-time consumption data from online music services. The actual widget can sit on the band's web pages, MySpace pages and Facebook pages.

Many have argued that most of the revenue that bands make comes increasingly from the concert tickets and the swag they sell at the concerts. GigsWiz figured that with their service the bands could serve their own fans better and improve their revenue by optimizing gigs and tours to the right cities and venues. Rasmus, a popular Finnish band (Spotify link here), is among the first bands using GigsWiz.

I remember some years ago a tech savvy artist Jonathan Coulton (Spotify link here) did used a similar model rather successfully with his fans, albeit in very small scale, to find the people who enjoyed his music the most so he knew where to play. A smart model and could be especially valuable when mixed with other third party location based data from services like Spotify. 

The GigsWiz service is free of charge for bands and artists. Even though the company hasn't said anything about it, I don't think a clear revenue model is far off if Gigswiz wants to build it in the service, especially if in the future most of the money comes from concert tickets and the swag anyway. That said, another potentially interesting model would be to focus on the data game and try to capture international markets with the model instead of diverting resources and attention to milking euros from the ticket sales.

Tom Keller, TechStars from yrityshelsinki on Vimeo.

In the video, Valto Loikkanen of EnterpriseHelsinki and GrowVC interviews Keller. Among explaining the key factors why TechStars works (you have to look at the video for that) Keller also tells that its not only the startups that benefit from the ecosystem that has built up in Boulder. It's also the mentors who benefit. Inspire mentorship was also big part of what EnterpriseHelsinki wanted to do at their event.

The best thing that the mentors can do is to give their time generously without necessarily thinking about their own compensation right away. They should be looking at the intangible benefits, including being able to work with really smart and ambitious young people, stay in touch with state of the art technology, have an opportunity to invest in these startups, have possibly even an employment opportunity and lastly one gets to build friendships and professional relationships with other mentors. Keller goes on to explain how not only the entrepreneurs have a strong community among themselves, but also the mentors have a very strong relationships among themselves. A good sign of this is that TechStars has about 50 active mentors and a waiting list of another 800 who would like become mentors.

Our own TechStar model at Aalto Bootcamp has already a lineup of young startups that just graduated from the first ever bootcamp. The three winners were Widsen, Thermophonic Heat Pump, and Hipui. For eager mentors, that's not a bad place to start looking for companies they could help. Here's the complete line up of startups at the Aalto Bootcamp program.

Why this is interesting is because the general belief is that US VCs are very rarely interested in investing in European companies, and it's even rarer to see a big name US VC to join a Euro startup board. Just in our previous story our guest blogger, Marita Seulamo-Vargas, reported how the US VCs had advised Nordic and Baltic companies to seek investments primarily from home.

That said, as much as I would like it to be, I don't think this development is a trend or a change of hearts from the US VC scene any more than Klarna is a just-another-startup, but it sure is interesting to see Moritz's move. I guess this was just another day in the startup life: "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."

You can read more about Klarna's offering here.