Normain in the Semi-Finals of Slush 100, Europe’s Leading Startup Stage

This week, Normain was in Helsinki, Finland for Slush 2025.

Normain pitched in the semi-finals of Europe’s most coveted startup competition: Slush 100. Out of over 1,000 startups that applied, we were selected among the top 20. Our CEO and co-founder, Sara Landfors, pitched on the main stage in front of judges from General Catalyst, and Cherry Ventures, and an audience packed with operators and investors building serious companies.

Sara also spoke on two panels during the event. The first, hosted by McKinsey, featured Henrik Landgren, Co-founder and CPTO at Gilion and Lukas Saari, Co-founder and CEO at Tandem Health. The panel was moderated by Sandra Hernvall, Associate Partner at McKinsey.

The second panel, titled Tales of Silicon Valhalla: From a two-time unicorn founder to bold builders, was a deep dive into what it takes to build a startup. Alongside Charles Maddock of Strawberry Browser, Willard Ahdritz 2-time unicorn founder, and Mattias Miksche, one of Sweden's most powerful angel investors, Sara spoke about building a team that’s radically transparent but also relentlessly driven. At Normain, we’re not optimizing for comfort, we’re optimizing for output and learning. That resonated with a lot of the founders and operators in the room.

Slush is a place where people building real products come to pressure-test ideas, sharpen stories, and connect with others doing the same. We left even more energized.

Thanks to the Slush team for creating the environment. We’ll be back next year!