Jane Walerud

Persuaded Ericsson's Management to release Erlang open source

Jane builds companies, often around technical ideas. She’s done well since persuading Ericsson to release Erlang open source, with Klarna, Tobii, Lensway, and fifteen other companies since selling Bluetail in 2000. She was the co-founder & CEO of Bluetail and invested in Klarna before incorporation, even paying to register the company. Of the companies, one is a privately held unicorn, three are listed, five including Bluetail have been sold, seven are growing nicely and three have not done well.

Nowadays, Jane and her family work together, investing time and money in deep tech startups. Jane works as Executive Chair of Graphmatech and director of Racefox, mentors startups through STING, and is an Associate at Creative Destruction Labs, Oxford-Said.

Jane was a member of the Swedish government’s Innovation Council for its inaugural term. She is a member and gold medalist of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of SUP46 Hall of Fame and holds an Honorary doctorate from the Royal Institute of Technology.

Talk:
Got a technical idea? How to build a company from there.

Got a technical idea? Your first steps in building a company from there.
15 minutes presentation & 15 minutes Q&A, so please prepare a question.