Dutch roots. Arctic home.
The story behind Codeva: from the flatlands of the Netherlands to the snow-covered Arctic Circle.
Codeva was born from a passion for building great software and an unconventional life path. The founder grew up in the Netherlands, surrounded by a culture of pragmatism, directness, and entrepreneurial spirit. But life had a different plan, one that led all the way to the Arctic Circle.
Today, Codeva operates from Rovaniemi, Finland, the official hometown of Santa Claus and a city where northern lights dance across the sky in winter and the midnight sun never sets in summer. It's a place that inspires clarity and focus, far from the noise of big-city tech hubs.
From this unique vantage point, we build custom software for clients around Europe, develop our own SaaS products like Sopivo, organise events under the Back to Doris brand, and hold strategic investments in promising companies. Codeva is more than a software studio. It's a platform for creating things that matter.
Behind Codeva
Codeva has a face, and it belongs to Mark van der Putten. Born in the Netherlands and now based in Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland, Mark has been building software professionally since 2003.
The first chapter was Thunderbite B.V. (later renamed Codeva B.V.), a Dutch software house focused on web development, hosting, and custom software for clients across the Netherlands. At its peak the business hosted around 500 client domains and built bespoke applications, including Tess, a complete booking and packaging platform for Scandinavian Wintersports and Scandinavian Summersports.
A second chapter began in 2014, when Mark co-founded a new Thunderbite with two partners, this time aimed at the iGaming industry. Over nine years the team grew to twenty-five people and shipped a Free-to-Play games platform that ran for tier-1 operators including William Hill, Entain, Kindred, Betsson, Caesars, BetMGM, Tipico, and Lottomatica. The platform processed millions of player interactions a day across Europe, North America, and South America. Thunderbite was acquired by Xtremepush in 2023, and Mark stayed on for two more years, leading the Free-to-Play Gamification and Loyalty division.
Early in 2026 he stepped away to focus on Codeva again, full time. The Codeva of today carries all of that with it: custom software, senior technical leadership, and a small handful of SaaS products developed from the edge of the Arctic Circle.
Mark works fully remote and has done so for more than twenty years. He speaks English and Dutch, with enough Finnish to greet his neighbours and get through a grocery run.
Dutch Roots
Born and raised in the Netherlands, a culture of openness, directness, and building things that work. That pragmatic Dutch mentality is woven into everything we do at Codeva.
−30°C
Winter temperatures in Rovaniemi. Keeps the servers cool.
24h
Of daylight in summer. Endless coding sessions.
Arctic Circle HQ
Operating from 66°N in Finnish Lapland. Quiet focus, clear air, and aurora-lit evenings.
Passion-driven
Whether it's writing clean code, launching a product, or throwing a great party, we love what we do.