Business & startup ecosystem

A central connector across Trondheim’s technology, research, business, capital, and public sector communities. Through events, projects, and shared initiatives, Trondheim TechPort helps companies and organisations find relevant expertise, partners, and opportunities across the city’s strongest technology environments.

Good for: Finding cross-sector connections, technology partnerships, and opportunities to collaborate.

Description:
The region’s broad business network (Næringsforeningen i Trondheim), connecting companies across industries through events, professional communities, advocacy, and local collaboration. It is a useful entry point for understanding the business landscape in Trondheim and building relationships with companies, leaders, and organisations across the region.

Good for: Getting closer to Trondheim’s wider business community and building local relationships.

Startup Trondheim connects more than 20 organisations across the region’s innovation community and works to make it easier for founders to find the people, resources, events, networks, advice, and capital they need. Its network includes incubators, coworking communities, investors, founder organisations, and specialist environments across Trondheim.

Good for: Finding your way into Trondheim’s startup scene and getting closer to the people, events, and support around it.

An industry-focused organisation working with companies, clusters, and innovation environments across Trøndelag. It helps strengthen collaboration, develop new business opportunities, and connect companies with relevant partners, projects, markets, and growth initiatives within key industrial sectors.

Good for: Companies looking for sector-specific networks, industry partnerships, and new commercial opportunities.

A founder program, toolkit, and network for people building technology companies from the ground up. 6AM offers practical resources, mentoring, expert support, an accelerator program, and connections to help early-stage teams move from idea toward traction.

Good for: First-time tech founders who want structure, practical tools, and a network around them while getting started.

Proneo supports startups and established companies with business development, commercialisation, innovation, and growth. Its Trondheim team offers access to experienced advisers, mentoring, industry connections, relevant networks, and funding opportunities, while helping companies strengthen ideas, partnerships, and their path to market.

Best for: business development, incubation, commercialisation, scaling, and one-to-one guidance.

Spawn Point is an accelerator and business network for game development studios in Norway. It helps developers build sustainable, professional studios through workshops, mentoring, business strategy, marketing, sales, financing, and access to relevant industry networks.

Good for: Game developers who want to turn a studio or project into a stronger, more sustainable business.

Startup Migrants runs practical programs for migrant entrepreneurs who want to develop, launch, and scale business ideas. Its programs include startup workshops, customer-development support, and events designed to connect international founders with local startup communities.

Good for: International and migrant founders who want structured support, local connections, and help moving an idea toward its first customers.

Altinn is the official government resource for setting up and running a company, with English-language guidance on choosing a legal structure, registering your business, tax and reporting requirements, hiring, funding schemes, imports and exports, and more. It also offers free guidance if you need help figuring out where to begin.

Best for: registering a company and understanding the rules of doing business in Norway.

Get guidance from Trondheim Municipality if you are starting, developing, or collaborating on a business project in the city. The team can help connect you with relevant advisers, support schemes, local partners, and opportunities for pilots or development projects.

Good for: Finding the right way into the municipal system and understanding who to contact next.

DIGS is part workspace, part meeting place, and part startup community. Founders, freelancers, and growing companies work side by side across flexible desks and offices, while the Workbar café, meeting rooms, event venues, and a packed programme of talks, workshops, meetups, and pitch nights keep people moving through the building all week. The real draw is the mix: you can work, grab lunch, host a meeting, catch an event, or meet someone useful without leaving the building.

Good for: Founders and teams who want more than an office, and like working somewhere with an active flow of people, events, and ideas.

Work-Work does coworking with a very different kind of energy. Office space and meeting rooms sit alongside a bar, arcade games, shuffleboard, pinball, quizzes, game nights, and regular events. It has a strong connection to Trondheim’s creative and gaming communities, which makes it a particularly good fit for founders and small teams who prefer something social, informal, and a little less conventional.

Good for: Creative founders, game developers, and small teams who want workspace with a strong social and cultural side.

FAKTRY is built for companies that need to make something physical. Alongside offices and coworking, members get access to an electronics lab, 3D printers, laser cutting, a large workshop, storage, and space for indoor and outdoor projects. It was created specifically because hardware startups need more than laptops and meeting rooms, giving teams room to prototype, test, break things, rebuild them, and keep going.

Good for: Hardware, IoT, robotics, product-development, and deep-tech teams that need serious prototyping space and equipment.

HAI brings Trondheim’s health-tech world into one shared arena. Led by Trondheim Tech Port and backed by NTNU, SINTEF, St. Olavs Hospital, Helse Midt-Norge, Trondheim Municipality, and Trøndelag County, it connects companies, researchers, clinicians, and public-sector actors through events, networks, knowledge-sharing, and programmes such as HAI Pioneers. For anyone working in health innovation, it offers a way into a field that can otherwise be difficult to navigate from the outside.

Good for: Health-tech founders, researchers, clinicians, and companies looking for partnerships, insight, and access to the wider health innovation community.

Gründerbrakka is home base for some of NTNU’s most committed student founders. It is designed for teams building scalable companies and expecting to stay with them beyond graduation, with workspace at Gløshaugen and direct proximity to Start NTNU, Spark NTNU, FRAM NTNU, and NTNU’s School of Entrepreneurship. The emphasis is on actually building a company, not simply experimenting with an idea on the side.

Good for: NTNU students and recent graduates who are building a startup seriously and want to work among other ambitious student founders.

Norway’s national organisation for innovation and business development, offering funding, advisory services, programmes, and support for companies at different stages of growth. It can also help businesses explore international markets, develop new products or services, and navigate relevant public funding opportunities.

Good for: Companies looking for funding, innovation support, or help expanding beyond Norway.

Connects founders and growth companies with investors, experienced business leaders, board candidates, mentors, and commercial advisers. Its network is designed to help companies strengthen strategy, prepare for investment, and gain access to people who can support the next stage of growth.

Good for:
Companies preparing to raise capital or looking for experienced commercial and strategic support.

Helps turn research, technology, and intellectual property from NTNU and related research environments into commercial opportunities. Its work includes developing new ventures, supporting spinouts, licensing technology, and connecting research-based ideas with industry and potential investors.

Good for: Exploring research-based technologies, spinouts, licensing opportunities, and early-stage innovation emerging from NTNU.