The government startup grant programme run by Innovation Norway decided to award us 400K NOK for 2011. This translates to about 50K EUR. Naturally, we’re extremely pleased with their decision, and promise to put the money to good use.
A bit of background: Innovation Norway is a government organization that was chartered to foster economic growth, and part of their activity is funding promising startups.
The great thing about an Innovation Norway grant is that it is, for all intents and purposes, a gift from the government. This is why the competition is pretty fierce, and the already slim chances of receiving money took a hit when the yearly pool of grant money was cut by more than 50% from 2010 to 2011.
Fortunately for us, we were selected. The idea now, naturally, is to invest the money on making our product really great. For that we need more manpower. However, with living costs in Norway being what they are, 50K EUR won’t be enough for paying yet another employee, at least not full time for a full year, but it goes a long way.
To our fellow Norwegian tax payers: We’ll keep you appraised on how we spent the money you so kindly gave us.
