 Right. Well, I just want to say how great it is to be back at Slush. I think it's been obviously a weird time for a lot of us. It didn't happen last year, but as someone who's been coming since 2014, it's really great to see everyone back. And I also want to make sure we acknowledge and thank all the volunteers that make this happen. It's really hard to believe that a bunch of college students make something like this happen every year. And so with that, I'm Eric Liao. I'm with IVP. I'm one of the general partners there, and it's my pleasure to spend some time and help introduce some of you to Oskari Saranma, the CEO and co-founder of Ivan. And I figured maybe just before we jumped into a lot of the substance, I'd ask a question that was certainly on my mind when we started to get to know each other, which is why is your logo a crab? Right. So good question and you know good to be here. We've been coming to Slush every time, every year since we started building Ivan some six years ago. And early on when we started building Ivan, we have a founding team of developers. We wanted to build a platform that we would have loved to use ourselves, something that helps us to just work with data, not have to manage all the data infrastructure. I can come back to that a little bit later. The crab comes in to the picture when we started thinking about what is it that we're doing? How are we going about things? We knew that we were building a platform, a product. It needs an identity, a name, a visual identity. And we wanted to do something new, something new, something that looks new, something that looks fresh. We're managing data, but we want to not look like your old school database companies. You can get some of the names up there. So we looked at a couple of logo proposals and ideas for the visual identity. And we had four proposals. There's four founders of Ivan. And we cast votes between these. And one proposal was a crab. The other one was something completely different. A little play on a letter A or something like that. Our votes were split. So I asked my then three-year-old daughter to cast the deciding vote, and she picked the crab for us. And we've been working with the crab ever since then. Sounds like she made a good choice. Yeah. I'm very happy with the choice that we made back then and that she picked. And so we've had a little bit about what the company does. You've shared a little bit. But talk about what inspired you to start the company. And then maybe we can talk about what brought you to Slush and what role Slush has played in helping your fundraising journey over the years and over the rounds. Sure. So myself and my co-founders were working with all sorts of data infrastructure. The invisible plumbing of the internet. Databases, security, networks, all that fun stuff that we really enjoyed always working with. But we found ourselves working with different kinds of organizations here in the Nordics, solving the same problem again and again and again for different kinds of companies and organizations. Many very tech savvy ones that were still struggling to manage the data and had to spend enormous amounts of time on that instead of spending the time building something that their actual users would want to have and want to do and the way they would want to interface with the company. So back in 2015, we decided to stop doing everything else and wanted to start building a product, a platform that we would have allowed to use ourselves. Something from developers for developers. So we want really to build something that makes developers' lives better, easier, happier. Something that allows them to focus on building applications rather than fighting infrastructure. And we didn't have a lot of strategic thinking behind everything we started doing back then. We just thought that, hey, there must be other people out there who are struggling with the same problems and we wanted to build something that is appealing to them and that they would find useful. And we didn't spend that much time thinking about how to go to market with this. We just had a naive belief that build it and they will come. One of the things I love about the story with you and your co-founders that maybe a lot of people don't know is that you already had a successful business before pivoting to start Ivan. And you took a lot of the learnings that you guys had in the tools you had built for yourselves and basically went dark for a year and turned off all revenue to then turn that platform into what you could then purpose for others. And that sort of conviction that the market you're going after and the pain point that you were feeling is something that we really look for in the entrepreneurs and the companies we work with. Usually, are you trying to solve a real problem? Does this market exist? And it turned out, obviously it did for you guys and maybe not the way you thought because why don't you tell us a little bit about the first customer you actually got? Because I think that's also a very important milestone. You think you've got a product, you think you have a market, but until someone actually pays you, it's a hobby, right? That's the difference between a company and a hobby. Yeah. That's a good point. And as you mentioned, we had been running a business for some years with my co-founders prior to starting Ivan and we weren't really part of the startup ecosystem. We weren't part of the AutoES or all the cool organizations that set up Slush in the first place. We've been to Slush every year and this has been a great place for us to learn more about the ecosystem and meet all sorts of people here. But we really built the first version of the product just between the four of us and we built a data platform. We created postgres service on Google Cloud and on AWS and some other clouds. And we thought, hey, Twitter is probably the place where we should announce this. And out of all places, nobody was there to tell us that you don't launch products on Twitter, but that's what we did. So we announced Ivan on Twitter beginning of 2016 and having worked with software companies here in the Nordics, most of our careers, we thought our customer base would consist of maybe like Nordic startup companies, maybe somebody from the Valley. But the first customer that signed up, seeing these Twitter ads in their feeds, was a Mexican trucking company. Say that again. What was it? A Mexican trucking company. Something completely different than we had imagined. It was really cool to see our product in the hands of somebody so far away building something that we didn't really understand. But it was really an eye-opening moment for us when we realized all companies are becoming software companies and even companies like them, they want to apply these technologies and move forward. They are not in the business of data management. They're in the business of building tools that are applicable in their business lines. And that's been a very guiding principle for us ever since then. We want to be able to build things for others for building what matters. And what was the size of that first order? That must be a number you were talking about. Yeah, so the way we built Ivan is AWS was already pretty popular, growing some people back then were already happy with the business model. You pay for what you consume. And we thought it's obvious. Every developer wants to work with that kind of a model. You can try out things you don't have to sign up for a long-term commitment. It wasn't universally accepted model back then. Still not quite today, but more and more are getting the notion and AWS is pretty successful business, I'd say. So these folks started with Ivan. I think they were paying 200 bucks a month to us, which of course wasn't quite enough to pay the salaries of our four founders. But that's where it started. You've got to start somewhere, right? Yeah. And so that was 2016. I think let's take it to slush. So the business is growing, making progress, raise a seed round from Lifeline. And then maybe talk about your first experience. I know you mentioned you'd been to slush many years. And this is your first time on stage. So maybe now you've made an ascended to that level. What did you get out of slush in 2018, as you were thinking about raising your A? Yeah. So slush has really been a great event for us. I think slush has a special place in our hearts. It's been such a great place to meet with other people in the ecosystem, investors, founders, operators. And early on, after we had built the first version of Ivan, we came to slush to look for funding to help us scale the company. But we really struggled to tell the story of Ivan. Like, it made sense to us, but it wasn't, for some reason, quite as obvious to everybody else out there. So we got a lot of, a lot of a nose in, you know, in response to our request for funding. But it helped us sharpen the story. And we, as you mentioned, we went on to raise a seed round from Lifeline Ventures here in Finland between slushes. But slush 18, I had been using this matchmaking tool, the one that everybody here loves. And we had a bunch of meetings lined up. But because of some little technical issues, I was almost, you know, I almost missed my meeting with early bird venture capital, German VC that, that we had a meeting with out of the 30 minute slot that we were allocated, we only got to spend like 10 minutes with Paul Klem from early bird. But that, you know, was that was a good 10 minutes. And we kind of get it off there and went on to close our series a afterwards. We did meet with a bunch of other investors back then. And I think maybe the thing that I found found here is that you get to meet so many folks, you get to talk about what you're building, you get to hear about what, you know, what interests them, what are they looking for. And you can look for who actually gets your story, what interests them, you know, do you feel like you, you know, you'd like working with those people in the long term. And that's that's really been a been something that we've that has worked out for us. And, you know, that led us to another, you know, meeting a year later with with you folks. Yeah. Well, and you said, you know, that was a good 10 minutes spent. But some of the other meetings maybe weren't so productive. I think there's one story you shared with me that it might be worth. I think it's funny in hindsight. But what was the, what was the quote that you got when you were doing, you know, a road trip and a roadshow with them investors elsewhere? Yeah, yeah. So, so Ivan has always had a global customer base. And, you know, I spent quite a bit of time in the US prior to the pandemic meeting with our customers and partners back there. And I was also meeting with with potential investors in the US over the years. And, you know, I think this was end of 2018 when I was I was meeting with a bunch of investors there. And, you know, somebody was, you know, interested in what we're building and, you know, thought it maybe this makes sense. But no American, you know, VC is going to drop 10 million bucks into a Finnish company. You know, if you want to get funded, move over here. Well, he was wrong. We've invested over 75 million at this point. So clearly that that American VC was was incorrect, I'll say mildly. Yeah. But so talk, you know, as you think about that journey and you've how have you sort of thought about being global from day one, where your customers have been, where the organization is, because now you have folks around the world, built a global team. Yeah. So we did go from, you know, four founders to a team of around 300 individuals now all around the world. We are headquartered here in Helsinki where we got started. And roughly half of our staff is based here. But we're building a product for the internet. And our customer base is global. We have customers in more than 50 countries around the world on old continents. And, you know, we to serve them efficiently. We also have our team members all around the world. We have, you know, folks in, I think, 15 or closer to 20 different countries around the world right now. We're just opening up an office in Singapore and, you know, gonna set up something, something interesting in Japan next year. But for us, like, why did we do that? A lot of companies that are being formed right now, I think are very focused on their whole market. And in some businesses, I think that makes a lot of sense. But for us building like B2B tools that run on the internet, you know, running the cloud, we shouldn't be limiting our, you know, customer base or ourselves to thinking about just, you know, the local economy here. Now, Finland is a small market. Like, if you build just the finished version of something, I don't think there's much success to be, you know, had in that space. You want to build something that, you know, has a universal audience. And for us, I think, you know, one of the struggles we always had over the first couple of years was we, you know, we were developers. We built a tool for other developers. Many investors, many operators didn't really get, like, why does this matter? Like, like, can you sell this to a business person? And, you know, it's taken us a long time to figure out how would that work? But there are 30 million developers out there. That's a pretty big audience. You know, that's something that, that, you know, you can, you can, you know, provide great tools to you. And when we got started with that, we thought we're a database company and it took us a long time to figure out that maybe we're more of a developer tools company and we can address this audience of tens of millions of developers. And, you know, during 2019 I had been talking to my team about, like, we shouldn't be looking up to, like, what Oracle is doing. We should be looking at, you know, what some other B2B, you know, developer tool companies are doing. Like companies like Data Dog, you know, Slack, GitHub, you know, building B2B tools that look quite similar to what you would expect the B2C tool to look like. And then, you know, I was introduced to this guy and, you know, in what, you know, 10 minutes I found out that he had invested in all these companies that I had been, you know, talking to my team about. Yeah, well, I mean, so I think that's an important point. You know, when you are in these discussions, at least from our perspective, too, it is a mutual selection process and fundraising between entrepreneur and investor. You know, certainly investors are looking for alignment on market size and opportunity. But I think also the same is true for an entrepreneur. And certainly when we, when we met, we recognize that, you know, to go back to the stat that you said, you know, 30 million developers on the one hand, that's a lot of people. That's a big market. But I guarantee you that anyone here who works at a start over as a founder, there's not, you're still having a hard time finding developers. So there aren't enough of them out there. And when you create tools that make people more productive, in this case, developers, we think that's really interesting. And I think that, you know, the growth of the company is certainly supported that thesis. And if I think about, and I don't want to say it's a surprise, but it's been, you know, you have a belief when you make an investment as an investor that the things you believe around the market size and the opportunity will come true. And when they actually do happen, it's quite rewarding. And I think, again, the credit goes to the to the organization that you've built. Yeah. So Eric, tell me about, so we met here in Helsinki, 2019, you know, around Slush. So after that meeting, you went back to the valley and, you know, you spent some time with your your partners. Like, how did you describe Ivan to them? How did you convince them that this all makes sense? Well, I think, you know, for good fortune, we've had a history of success working with great companies in Finland, going back to my SQL and then and then Supercell. And Ivan was the third company we invested in based in Helsinki and Supermetrics is the fourth. And so so there was a very keen view that this is a market with a lot of talent to people. We believe that we're looking for the best companies anywhere, which I think is actually a great thing for all the founders and entrepreneurs in the audience. I think the world has truly changed in terms of the belief that great companies can be started anywhere. And certainly, you know, capital will come will come find you. And I think if anything, the pandemic has accelerated that trend. And so we saw those things, believe in the thesis, really liked again, the fact that you and your co-founders had the conviction to basically go dark and quit your jobs and put a lot of personal risk on the table to pursue a vision. And we found that a lot of the best companies that we've invested and have really founders that are that are that have a strong belief and a strong pain point that they're trying to solve because you kind of have to be a little bit crazy to quit a job and start a company. And I have a ton of respect for all of you that are doing that. And then, you know, when when we sort of this is the boring part, but then you looked at the numbers and I think I said this to you at the time. But the only other similar case that we had seen at the similar stage of development was actually was it was data doc. And that turned out to be a pretty pretty good company and a very successful company that we're lucky to be involved with. So it actually was not that that hard to convince people right, at least on our end. Yeah, so, you know, somebody said that, you know, all, you know, good ideas look like bad ideas before they're obvious. It's true. And it's true. So that's certainly, you know, what we've we've founded with with Ivan, like we set out to build something that we really strongly believed in. And over the years, you know, there were people who didn't get it, but that didn't, you know, get a sidetrack too much, at least. And, you know, we were really focused always on our customers, on our product, and, you know, trying to figure out what else can we do for our customers, not, you know, trying to second guess, you know, or, you know, what, what some other people would like us to do. Like we wanted to do, you know, what's best for our customers. And that's where we found a lot of success. Yeah. And you know, talking about that, you know, do you have any great insights? You know, you'd like to share with, you know, other founders, like how, you know, how to build up, you know, a company that, you know, gets you folks interested in them. Yeah, I think the things that we go back and we're a reasonably selective firm, we make maybe a dozen investments per year. I think it is, I'll say some of the things I said, a mutual selection process. We're looking for entrepreneurs that have, you know, a clear sense of purpose are building a team, because certainly as you go from even starting with four, it's a tough job to build a company and get something off the ground. And so you want to see that there's evidence that the founders can expand their responsibilities, attract people, and grow an organization, because ultimately, you know, anything that is that as large as we all hope something can become will require a lot of, you know, blood, sweat, and tears from a lot of people over the years. So that's really important to us. We're patient investors, and so I think sometimes timing plays a role in investments, particularly when we think about what a market may develop. I think we've been very excited to see the demand across the board for cloud-based developer tools and just the migration to the cloud. That will continue, I think, and probably a lot of you in this audience are also going after that opportunity. So we look for things like that. And then I think, you know, one of the things I guess I'd turn around and ask you is as a tip maybe for this group, because of your point, you know, Helsinki is a relatively small city and a relatively small bi-population country, of course. You've got, you've had to be global. That's only become more difficult or more mandatory, you know, with the pandemic. But what are maybe some nuggets that you might have around building a culture globally and making sure that, you know, colleagues who are in Helsinki who have never met their colleagues in Australia and Sydney can feel like they're on the same team. Yeah. So good question. And that's really, I think, the hardest part about building a startup. Like it's all about the people, right? When we set out to build Ivan, we had, I think, like three core principles. So, you know, we wanted to create simple solutions for complex problems. We wanted to automate everything, you know, to be able to support this scale. And we wanted to hire the best people, you know, to do all of that. And we've gone from, we were around 40 people when the pandemic set in and we were working out of a couple of locations, Helsinki, Berlin, Boston, and, you know, just set up something in Sydney. Now we are almost 300 people and, you know, trying to, you know, make sure that everybody's aligned with, you know, the company vision and the culture. That's hard, but that's also something that, you know, where investments make a lot of sense for all of us. And that's something where, you know, all founders of companies, not just, you know, the CEO, but, you know, all the early employees, all the founding team members should, you know, spend a lot of their time, you know, thinking of like, what are we building together? How are we aligning everybody around this? And the company's changing all the time, you know, when it's four people, it's a different company than when it's 40 people. When it's 100 people, it's, again, a different company. And you need to be able to, you know, tell the story and take the people with you on the journey. Not everybody, you know, will be able to, and will want you to be on that journey. A lot of people want to work in a small setting and a small startup, but, you know, we are working hard on, you know, taking everybody with us on this scaling journey. So, yeah. And so we, well, at least in my mind, you know, sort of fundraising rounds are milestones, but they are important ones and, you know, we obviously announced the C1 extension, I guess about a month and a half ago at a roughly $2 billion or euro, either plus or minus is probably, you know, in that range today. Is it hard to believe, considering, you know, where you started that that's this milestone and then, you know, at the same time, obviously, the expectations continue to rise. What is, how do you feel like, you know, you want to tackle the future from this point forward, too? So, you know, we've found a great, I'd say we've found a great product market fit. The market we are in is great. We're able to, you know, build much more of Ivan. We're able to serve more customers out there. You know, we've been to Slush every year and, you know, the company has been different each year. Like, when we were here for the first couple of years, we had one of those tiny booths of the startup, you know, alley here. Now we have a much, you know, bigger presence here and, you know, we've certainly benefited from the ecosystem around us. We participated in many other, you know, bigger companies, startup programs over the years that have, you know, been very helpful for us, very good for us. Some of those have led into, you know, interesting product collaborations with those bigger companies and we continue to work together to this day. So now, this year at Slush, so we, you know, we've come a long way and we think it's, you know, our time to give back to the community and give back to the startups and we're launching our new startup program called Cluster here at Slush, you know, today. And there's gonna be something interesting happening at our booth just, you know, behind you folks in a couple of minutes. But before we get to that, you know, there's a little video that we'd like to show you about, you know, what's the program all about? Entering the world of startups can be hard. Poor decisions made early in life can haunt them long into the future. There is safety in numbers, but some may still fall by the wayside. Ivan Cluster offers startups a helping hand and the freedom to relax and focus on growing stronger. This is Ivan's new startup program, offering, you know, serious seed and A startups free access to our platform, helping you just focus on building your products without having to worry about the data infrastructure. So it's up to a hundred K in free credits for a year and applications are just, you know, opening and you can hear more about Cluster at our booth right there or read more on our website. You know, hope to see many of you sign up.