Staria Growth Summit was previously known as NetSuite Day, and this was the 8th time the annual event was organized. The new name represents the event's focus on growth in general and the second panel discussion of the day reflected the new theme well as it was all about financial trends and funding.
We were honored to have these prestigious panelists on the stage:
Henrik Husman, President, Nasdaq Helsinki
Vesa Riihimäki, Head of Startup & Growth Business, Nordea
Juho Frilander, Managing Director, EQT Group
The panel was hosted by Artti Aurasmaa, CEO, Staria
The panel discussion in nutshell
The panel discussion had three carrying themes, current financial environment, funding and future trends, and it was hosted by Staria's CEO Artti Aurasmaa.
Firstly, the panel addressed questions related to current financial environment. In general, financing and funding activity has slowed down during the past year due to increased interest rates and high inflation. The panelists shed light on the situation in their company, if they have financing available for growth companies at the moment or not. They also gave advice for companies looking for financing in today’s market environment and went through the minimum requirements companies need to meet to be applicable for financing.
One topic of discussion was polarized markets and if there's a certain company type or industry that is attracting funding currently. Is growth still drawing attraction or is strong positive cash flow currently more important? What about the importance of international growth?
The panelists also shared their insights on future trends. Aurasmaa mentioned speculations regarding the development of the interest rates and experts' estimations that the investment markets would open up as soon as the interest rates stabilize. He asked the panelists that now as the interest rates have recently been more stabilized, would they expect an increase in the investment into growth companies or does the interest rate development actutally have anything to do with financing activity.
Aurasmaa also asked about panelists' views on "a bull market" – could we see a record high investment, financing, and IPO activity sometime in the future? Globally, there is more capital in the Private Equity funds than ever before – due to increased interest rates regulated banks have had record high profitability while the number of IPOs have been understandably low during the past quarters. Could this or something else trigger a bull market?
After digging into future trends, it was time to end the fruitful panel discussion. Remember, we only scratched the surface here, you can watch the whole discussion below!
Want to read more about the whole event and order the event recording? Visit here.