Last week, our team at Axcels had the privilege of winning the Marketplace & Platform category at the Maria 01 NOW Pitching Competition in Helsinki.It was an exciting moment — but also an eye-opener about where the market is heading, and what fast-growing tech SMEs are going to need next.Because if there’s one thing we heard again and again — both from the jury and from conversations with other founders at Maria 01 — it’s this:In 2025 and beyond, product alone isn’t enough. Tech startups need to tell their story — and scale that story — with the same rigor they apply to product development.And that’s where most teams are struggling.

A New Generation of Software Companies Is Coming — Fast

A New Generation of Software Companies Is Coming — FastThe GenAI revolution is radically changing the startup landscape.Tools that once took large teams and years to build can now be assembled by small, focused teams in a matter of months. The barriers to launching AI-driven products are falling away.We’re already seeing it:

• The number of AI-first and software-driven startups entering global markets is surging.
• Product cycles are accelerating.
• The competition for attention — especially in B2B SaaS — is intensifying.

One seasoned investor at Maria 01 put it bluntly:"We're about to see 10X the volume of AI and software companies in the next few years. The winners won’t just be the best products — they’ll be the ones that can communicate value and build trust faster than the rest."

Why Marketing Is the Bottleneck for Early-Stage Tech Teams

Here’s the catch: most early-stage tech founders are still running marketing like it’s 2015.And it’s not their fault. The market hasn’t served them well.The reality:

• Most AI marketing platforms are built for large enterprises or solopreneurs — not the scaling tech SME in between.
• Hiring agencies is slow, expensive, and misaligned with the fast iteration cycles of software startups.
• Founders wear too many hats — and marketing gets deprioritized in the rush to build product, raise funding, and find customers.
  

Yet in parallel:

• Content marketing has become one of the highest-ROI growth levers in B2B SaaS.
• Buyers increasingly make decisions based on thought leadership and community trust, not just product features.
• AI-driven content creation offers a massive opportunity — but only if integrated into a consistent, strategic workflow.

At Maria 01 NOW, this theme came through again and again — across conversations with founders, jurors, and investors.Everyone sees the same problem:The product pipeline is maturing. The marketing pipeline is stuck.What We’re Building — and Why the Jury RespondedWhen we pitched Axcels at Maria 01, we weren’t trying to sell an all-in-one magic marketing tool.We talked about something simpler — but more fundamental:Bringing the CI/CD mindset of modern software development to content creation and marketing.

Just like developers use continuous integration and delivery to:

• Ship faster
• Ensure quality
• Automate repetitive work
• Align outputs with changing user needs

…we believe content marketing needs the same systemization.Not more dashboards. Not another AI writer. A real pipeline:

• Clear inputs (product strategy, ICP insights)
• Automated workflows (creation, localization, promotion)
• Continuous optimization (based on performance feedback)

In short: marketing that can keep pace with modern product development.That’s the vision the Maria 01 jury connected with. Not just because it’s technically elegant — but because it speaks to a real, painful gap founders are feeling today.

Why Maria 01 NOW Matters

If you haven’t been to Maria 01 yet, put it on your list.

As the largest Nordic startup campus, it’s become more than just a workspace — it’s one of the clearest validation grounds for emerging tech trends in Europe.

At this year’s NOW Pitching Competition:

• 100 startups from 20+ countries pitched across 10 tracks.
• The vibe was distinctly international — reflecting how many startups now operate as global-first from day one.
• The conversations weren’t just about product-market fit — they were about audience-market fit.

And the key takeaway was this:

Marketing is no longer an afterthought. It’s core to how modern software companies scale — and it needs to evolve alongside product workflows.

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The Road Ahead for Tech SME Founders

Here’s what we see coming — and what we’re building toward:

More software companies, faster

GenAI will 10X the number of new entrants. Differentiation will depend on how well you tell your story and build trust.

Global competition from day one

Especially in Europe, Asia, and emerging tech hubs — geographic moats are gone. Marketing execution matters more than ever.

Marketing as an integrated workflow

In the future, marketing won’t live in a silo. It will be part of the CI/CD pipeline of the company — feeding off product updates, sales feedback, and customer insights in real time.

Demand for tools that serve tech SMEs

The underserved middle — fast-growing, 5-200 person software companies — needs marketing tools built for their realities. Simplicity, relevance, performance.

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Closing Thoughts: A Shared Opportunity

Winning at Maria 01 NOW was a great milestone for our team — but more importantly, it underscored the scale of the opportunity ahead:

• To help tech SMEs build marketing engines that match the pace of modern software development.
• To bridge the gap between product innovation and market resonance.
• To make content creation and marketing execution simple, scalable, and authentic — not an after-hours struggle for overworked founders.
• We believe the next generation of breakout companies will be the ones that get this right.

And at Axcels, we’re committed to helping them do it — with tools that fit how modern tech teams actually work.

Huge thanks to Maria 01, the NOW Pitching Competition jury, and the wider founder community for the conversations, insights, and momentum.

Here’s to what’s next — for all of us building in this new wave of software innovation

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