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Helsinki’s startup scene evolved around giants like Nokia, gaming giant Supercell and food delivery platform Wolt. It is reaping rewards with experienced entrepreneurs, investors and engineers driving a lively scene based on the Aalto University campus and the Slush startup festival, one of the largest startup and investor gatherings in the world.
“We appreciate work-life balance and collaboration,” explains Jonne Kuittinen, Deputy CEO of the Finnish Venture Capital Association. “The Supercell guys were very open about paying all their taxes in Finland and this giving back mentality is visible now that these founders are helping in many of the current funding rounds. “I think the scene is about to gain momentum.”
The country’s low unemployment has made it difficult to find coders, says Claes Mikko Nilsen, director at VC Nordic Ninja, but a responsive government that launched a fast-track D visa in 2022 has boosted international recruitment. The next step? Larger funds for late-stage investments.
Paebbl
“Concrete is the most consumed product on the planet, after water, and that is not going to decrease,” says Paebbl co-CEO Andreas Saari. The main ingredient of concrete, Cement is the source of 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.. Paebbl reverses this, using the erosion or mineralization of rocks to convert carbon dioxide into stone. Carbon captured at industrial sites is mixed with water and ground silicate to produce a solid carbonate-based material using a technique developed by Pol Knops, CTO of Paebbl. Paebbl founders Jane Walerud, Marta Sjögren, former Slush CEO Saari, and Knops raised €8 million ($8.9 million) in seed funding from climate tech venture capital Pale Blue Dot, the French investor 2050, the Grantham Foundation and several angels in October 2022. In May 2024, the pilot reactor captured its first ton of CO2. A demonstration plant will come online later this year and the stone will be deployed in the field in spring. The next step: select sites and partners for four commercial-scale plants, operational by 2030. paebbl.com
Remote technologies
Distance Technologies has developed a prototype mixed reality version of a military pilot’s head-up display (HUD) that functions as a 3D monitor without glasses. An LCD panel projects 3D images onto transparent surfaces, such as a car windshield treated with a reflective coating. The company is exploring applications for detailed 3D topographic maps projected onto cockpit windshields for pilots and night-vision images of the road for drivers. The prototype is equipped with a hand tracker, so users can interact with the screen hands-free. Founded in 2023 by co-founders Jussi Mäkinen and Urho Konttori, who met at Helsinki-based mixed reality headset company Varjo, it raised $2.7m (£2.04m) in a previous round to the seed led by FOV Ventures and Maki.vc, with Business Finland and David Helgason’s Foobar.vc. Discussions are currently underway with automotive, aerospace and defense companies. distance.tech
Constant energy
Steady Energy began at Finland’s state-owned Technical Research Center when founder, CEO Tommi Nyman and co-founder Hannes Haapalahti decided to commercialize the center’s low-temperature nuclear reactor, the LDR-50. Most existing nuclear reactors operate at around 300°C, superheating steam to drive heavy turbines. The modular LDR-50 operates between 65°C and 120°C and heats water directly. This will be pumped through district heating networks, providing neighborhood systems with hot water from a power station transported through insulated pipes to heat homes. These networks have long been popular in Scandinavia and the United States, and are spreading to other European countries thanks to last year’s EU directive expanding their use. Having raised €15 million ($16.7 million) from Lifeline Ventures, Yes VC and Reid Hoffman’s Aphorism Foundation, Steady Energy has preliminary deals for 15 reactors with utilities Helen and Kuopion Energy. Construction is expected to begin in 2028 and operation to begin in 2030. stableenergy.com
Skyfora
Skyfora is developing next-generation instruments to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts. The company offers three different weather probes called StreamSondes: ultralight atmospheric transmitters that hurricane hunters place in the path of storms. The company is also retrofitting satellite receivers in telecommunications base stations to a network of weather scanners, which can analyze water vapor, temperature and air pressure. CEO Fredrik Borgström, CTO Kim Kaisti and co-founder Antti Pasila raised €5 million ($5.5 million) in four rounds of funding from Icebreaker.vc, Voima Ventures and other business angels. The company’s StreamSonde was deployed during Hurricane Beryl in July and Skyfora is now working with telecom operators to install proof-of-concept pilot towers. skyfora.com
enifer
In the 1970s, the Finnish paper industry used fungi to treat wastewater and sold the resulting mycoprotein as animal feed. The technique died with the industry, but Simo Ellilä, Heikki Keskitalo, Joosu Kuivanen, Ville Pihlajaniemi and Anssi Rantasalo reused it. Together they founded Enifer in April 2020 to develop food-grade mycoproteins by recycling waste liquids from food, agriculture and forestry. A €15 million ($16.7 million) Series B round in April brings total funding to €27 million ($30.2 million) from Taaleri Bioindustry I fund, Nordic Food Tech VC, Voima Ventures and others. Construction of the factory began in May, with the aim of reaching industrial scale by 2025, with new sites on the way. enifer.com
Reorbit
ReOrbit is a pioneer in “software-enabled satellites,” a distributed network of secure satellites that act as an Internet of Things in space. Satellite manufacturing has not changed in 40 years, explains Sethu Saveda Suvanam, CEO and founder, because they can only communicate directly with Earth. Suvanam is solving this problem by building “flying routers,” which allow, for example, military satellites to send images of Russian ships to the coast guard through space at high speed, speeding up warnings. A massive €7.4 million ($8.2 million) seed round in September 2023 will fund an in-orbit demonstration satellite, scheduled for launch in 2025. reorbit.space
Kingdom
The founders Miika Huttunen and Mikko Mäntylä met at Slush, a company with a high staff turnover, which caused loss of documentation and lack of “corporate memory”. With former Stripe engineer Johan Jern, they created a large AI language model that can search every digital document an organization has created to provide answers, for example, to sales reps’ questions about previous agreements. Launched in April 2023, its first pre-seed funding round of €1.7 million was led by Lifeline Ventures with angels including the Helsinki founders of Zalando and Supercell. The company is now working with acquisition analytics leader Sievo, gaming company Remedy Entertainment and electric vehicle charging provider Virta. conrealm.com
Bob W.
Short for “The Best of Both Worlds,” the company operates 36 full-service apartment hotels in 17 cities across Europe. The company uses a digital front desk run by chatbot Bob W who handles check-in and check-out, as well as booking breakfast spots and gyms. The system also informs guests of their carbon dioxide emissions for each choice made. Founded in 2018 by Niko Karstikko and Sebastian Emberger, the company has raised €70 million ($78.3 million). In the most recent round, in March, Wise founder Taavet Hinrikus and Supercell co-founder Mikko Kodisoja raised €40 million ($44.7 million). The money finances an ambitious acquisition policy: buying 20 to 25 buildings across Europe and converting them into between 1,500 and 2,000 aparthotel rooms. bow.co
Swarm
Swarmia is a software engineering effectiveness platform designed to make it easier for software teams to communicate, set goals, and measure productivity. Key to this is software that connects other platforms like GitHub, Jira/Linear, and Slack, creating “working agreements”: agreed upon guidelines for managers and teams on how they plan to work together. These include objectives, how they will be met, and how results will be measured. Founder Otto Hilska was previously Chief Product Officer at Smartly.io. It has raised €13.8 million ($15.4 million) in three rounds, most recently with Dig Ventures, and is expanding in the United States. Swarmia currently serves over 1,500 companies including WeTransfer, Hostaway and Axios HQ, while its future plans include reducing the size of the free plan to increase revenue. swarmia.com
noise
Noice is all about the metagame. The live streaming gaming platform allows viewers to bet on the results of the games they are watching using digital cards. These could predict, for example, that the next death in a Fortnite game will involve a shotgun. Each correct card chosen earns points, and they can be purchased or earned by watching ads. Founded in 2020, the company has raised a total of €25 million in two rounds of funding, backed by local entrepreneurs including the co-founders of Supercell and the co-founders of Wolt. Noice’s co-founders, CEO Jussi Laakkonen and CTO Jaakko Lukkari, met at Applifier, the Finnish company that helped developers create game replays, before the company was acquired by Unity. The company is still in beta testing and will fully launch later this year. noise.com
This article first appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of WIRED UK.