Finland has had many unicorns, from gaming giants Rovio and Supercell to database management system MySQL and food delivery service Wolt. And it’s home to one of the world’s most renowned startup events, Slush, which is held every year at the city’s Expo and Convention Center.
Those who make the annual visit to Slush tend to think of the city as a stopping point, but because of this, they miss out on direct interaction with Helsinki’s vibrant startup sector. “The most important thing is the culture,” says Mia-Stiina Heikkala, business advisor for start-ups at NewCo Helsinki, the city’s main business development service. “We have a very open and trustworthy way of thinking, so everyone talks about their business ideas.” Helsinki is a small city in a relatively small country, which means that the investment sector is relatively underpowered, but that is changing, and fast. The city recognizes the importance of attracting international talent and specifically funds newcomers, while also supporting homegrown start-ups.
Tuure Parviainen, co-founder of Volare.Photo: Jussi Puikkonen
Volare
Tuure Parviainen and Matti Tähtinen, co-founders of Volare, think that the black soldier fly could be the solution to two major problems in the global food chain: food waste and the demand for protein. The two teamed up at VTT, Finland’s Technical Research Center, to develop a way to breed the fly, and in the spring of 2021 they came out of VTT to scale up the idea to an industrial level. Larvae of black soldier flies are fed food waste — collected within a 50-mile radius of their headquarters — to grow into insects that can be used in pet food and animal feed. Seed financing of €700,000 (approximately $690,000 at current exchange rates) from Maki.vc helped build the team of nine and will fund the construction of an industrial plant capable of producing 5,000 tons of protein per year in Hyvinkää, approximately 50 kilometers north of Helsinki, in 2023. volare.fi
Gubbé
When Sandra Lounamaa’s grandfather died, she was left with a puzzle: who would help for her widowed grandmother? The marketing professional struggled to find a company that could provide trusted employees to take on nursing responsibilities and assist with household activities – so in 2018 she founded a company that would do it for her. She enlisted the help of co-founder Meri-Tuuli Laaksonen, a friend she met on a Facebook group for new moms, and created Gubbe, named after a beloved dog. “Gubbe is the best aged care for your elderly loved one,” Lounamaa says. The company mediates connections between student carers, who undergo a seven-step screening process, and those who need care – it’s like Wolt, but for care. More than 1,000 healthcare providers have signed up to the service in Sweden and Finland, with the company launching in the UK in August. The 45-strong company has raised 6.1 million euros from investors, including Spintop Ventures, Nidoco AB and Tesi. gubbe.com
mjuk
Mjuk was founded in 2019 by Rickard Zilliacus, Max Heino and Casper von Pfaler, because they wanted an affordable and easy way to buy quality second-hand furniture. “We take the hassle out of buying and reselling used furniture with a service that picks up and delivers your stuff when it suits you,” says Zilliacus. Logistics, including pick-ups and deliveries, is handled and managed in-house using purpose-built apps. In total, the company has sold 25,000 pieces of furniture since its inception, with a gross commercial value of €5 million, which is likely to double this year. A funding round in March 2022 – the company’s second – brought the total amount won by the company from investors to €5.5 million. It will be used to expand into mainland Europe by 2023 and to increase the company’s workforce from the current 25. “Our goal for five years is to become the leading player in second-hand furniture in Europe. become,” says Zilliacus. mjukhome.com
GraphoGame
By the age of 30, Jesper Ryynänen had lived in six countries, and he realized that Finnish teaching practices – such as having all students, regardless of skill level, in one classroom – set themselves apart from the rest of the world. In 2017, he launched GraphoGame with co-founder Mervi Palander, who has 25 years of experience creating digital learning solutions, such as the online learning platform Claned. GraphoGame gamifies literacy education for children aged 4-9, supported by research results from the University of Cambridge and Yale, among others. “We’re working with governments to distribute our apps to children who need them most, creating lasting educational impact on a nationwide scale,” Ryynänen said. Kids learn the basics within a month or two of using GraphoGame. Available in 15 countries, the app is used by 400,000 students monthly in various languages, including Zambian tribal dialects. graphogame.com
solar food
Throughout history, the food chain has depended on agriculture as a source, but Solar Foods CEO and co-founder Pasi Vainikka believes it doesn’t have to be. The company, founded in 2017 after being spun out of VTT, produces a protein powder called Solein that can be used as a raw material in foods such as meatballs, noodles and ice cream. The fermented powder, which contains between 65 and 70 percent protein, 5 to 8 percent fat, 10 to 15 percent dietary fiber and 3 to 5 percent mineral nutrients, is made from microbes. Commercial production will take place at a factory in Vantaa, 20 kilometers north of Helsinki, financed with a EUR 10 million investment in February 2022 from the Finnish Pharmacy Pension Fund, starting in the first half of 2023. solarfoods.com
Rickard Zilliacus, co-founder of second-hand furniture platform Mjuk.Photo: Jussi Puikkonen
Flowrite
Overwhelmed by the burden of writing repeated emails, Aaro Isosaari – then leader of Finnish startup accelerator Kiuas – thought there must be a solution. So in 2020, he moved from advising startups to launching his own: Flowrite. The company’s flagship product is an AI-powered writing assistant that converts short instructions, such as “cal invite?” in ready-made emails and messages. Currently in beta, the Google Chrome browser extension is used by more than 50,000 people. Those not currently using it will have to wait until it comes out of beta later this year. Flowrite’s $5 million in funding has helped build an 18-person team, all of whom work remotely. flowrite.com
pixieray
Pixieray hopes to bring perfect vision to everyone, everywhere, at all times. Founded in 2021 by Niko Eiden, Rebecca Xu, Klaus Melakari and Ville Miettinen, the company goes several steps beyond varifocal lenses. The adaptive glasses work like a phone’s camera, constantly adjusting focus and zooming in and out about every 100 milliseconds. The company raised $4.4 million in seed funding in June 2021 from companies like Maki.vc and the Amazon Alexa Fund, with plans to ship its first pair of glasses in 2023. pixieray.com
IQM
The quantum hardware company IQM emerged from Aalto University in 2018 and is the brainchild of Jan Goetz, Kuan Yen Tan, Mikko Möttönen and Juha Vartiainen. IQM builds quantum computers using superconducting qubits, with 180 employees in four offices in Espoo, Munich, Paris and Madrid working to accelerate processing power. The company has supplied a five-qubit processor to the Finnish VTT research center and a quantum computer to contribute to the Q-Exa project in Germany. Rather than operating on a one-size-fits-all basis, IQM develops its processors for specific tasks, such as nanoscale nuclear magnetic resonance imaging — a concept that has helped the company raise money from investors, most recently a round of €128 million in July 2022. meetiqm.com
helppy
Finland has one of the five fastest-aging populations in the world, so the aged care sector is a major focus – and Helppy is another startup, besides Gubbe, trying to help. The platform enables continuity of care between nurses who traditionally work shifts and know little about their patients, providing them with data on the needs of the patients. Since its founding in 2018 by Richard Nordström, it has attracted 5,000 nurses, who connect the app with people in need of care. In total, the nurses care for 1,000 patients. In May 2022, Helppy received €3 million in funding from Wolt co-founder Elias Aalto and others, including VC firm Alliance Venture. The funding will enable Helppy to expand into Central Europe, Nordström said. helppy.com
Mainframe Industries
Massively multiplayer online (MMO) games are a $43 billion industry, but they’re ill-equipped for the cloud. Mainframe Industries – Founded in 2019 by 13 veteran game developers including Ubisoft, Blizzard Entertainment and CCP Games (makers of EVE Online) – want to fix that. The cloud-native gaming Mainframe is developing allows players to pick up and play in a device-independent manner, similar to the way you access Netflix. The company, which has 60 employees, has raised nearly $30 million from investors, including the co-founders of Twitch and King, creators of Candy Crush Saga. thememainframe.com
