About 6AM
You don't have to
figure it out alone.
6AM is built on one belief: the gap between "I have an idea" and "I have a company" is mostly a knowledge and network problem, not a talent problem.
We give first-time founders the tools, structure, and support to close that gap. A toolkit to start with, an accelerator to go deep, and a network to grow into.
With a team consisting of founders, investors and community builders, we're here to help. And with our extended team of curated partners, mentors, experts, and alumni, you're in good hands.
The team
Thor Richard Isaksen
Thor Richard has spent his career at the intersection of media, technology and entrepreneurship. He founded and led Instapoll, a real-time sports analytics venture built with TV2 for Premier League broadcasts, and previously headed communications at Zedge (NYSE: ZDGE), a global smartphone personalization platform with hundreds of millions of installs. He also ran his own consultancy advising tech and research institutions on communications and innovation. Since joining 6AM in 2020, he has grown into the CEO role while also serving as an investment manager at Gnist Capital and sitting on the boards of StartupTRD, Slidedrain and T:Lab. At 6AM, he works mostly with financing and big-picture strategy, and as a former founder himself, he's a hands-on mentor to the startups in the program.
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Erik Andreas Sæther
Erik Andreas holds a PhD in innovation management from NTNU, completed as an industrial PhD with Yara, and remains an Associate Professor at NTNU researching motivation, creativity and innovative work behaviour. Before academia, he worked internationally in business development and strategy consulting, from California to Ghana to Ireland, and helped shape an international school through its early growth phase. He has led 6AM's accelerator program since 2021, and runs it in all its glory, from sculpting the program itself down to day-to-day operations and mentoring the founders in it.
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Marcus Antonsen Nickelsen
Marcus built his entrepreneurial chops at the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship, where he co-founded and served as COO of Njord Robotics, developing robotics for the aquaculture industry, alongside a master's degree in marine technology. He's been a startup advisor and advisor manager at Spark NTNU, a Global Fellow with the Sustainable Ocean Alliance in San Francisco, and president of the Trondheim startup hub Gründerbrakka. He's also a founder and board member of ESAF Invest, an alumni-driven investment vehicle. At 6AM since 2021, he meets more startups every week than most people see in a year, helps run the accelerator, and makes investments through Gnist Capital.
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Marianne Øverbø Olsen
Marianne brings close to a decade of project and organisational leadership from Trondheim's culture and innovation scene. She spent seven years at Technoport as project manager, including a stint as interim CEO, and before that was managing director of the concert venue Byscenen and volunteer coordinator for the Pstereo festival. That track record of building and running things end-to-end now goes into leading StartupTRD, the leading startup community builder in Trondheim.
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Inger-Lovise Fjellgaard
Inger-Lovise is a founder herself: she started and led Hera Solutions, a logistics-tech company digitising freight documentation, which went through 6AM's own program before securing investment from Gnist Capital and Startuplab. She's also worked as a business developer for CoFounder, an investment company backing early-stage B2B tech startups, and helped lead Ascend NTNU, a student aerial-robotics team, as deputy project manager and head of marketing. Having been on the founder side of 6AM before joining the team, she now loves working with founders in our community, as well as our great partners.
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Sigve Søråsen
Sigve co-founded Strise in 2016, first as CEO and later as Chief Product Officer and board member, taking it from an idea to a fast-growing scale-up recognised as one of the world's most innovative companies. Before that, he led product and business development at E24 and Schibsted, and was managing director of the music-streaming service WiMP (now Tidal) through its national launch. Today he works as an independent strategy consultant helping software founders navigate AI, product and growth. He's the guru, mentor and sparring partner every founder wants in their corner, helping guide 6AM's founders along their path.
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Kristin Saue Jensen
Kristin has spent years as a business economics advisor and company partner at SpareBank 1 Regnskapshuset SMN, working closely with businesses on their accounts and finances. The accounting G.O.A.T., she helps 6AM keep track of everything.
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