Finland startup ecosystem
Finland's startup ecosystem punches above its weight thanks to a culture of technical excellence, high trust, and Nokia's legacy of engineering talent. Helsinki hosts Slush, one of Europe's premier startup conferences, and the country is a leader in gaming, cleantech, and health tech. Public funding agencies like Business Finland provide strong non-dilutive support. The directory currently lists 64 organisations across 8 cities.
Showing 21–40 of 64 Finland
Cities in Finland
Types in Finland
Finland results
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Icebreaker.vc
Icebreaker.vc was founded in 2017 in Helsinki by Aleksi Partanen, Lasse Lehtinen, Riku Sepälä, and Teddie Wardi to address the pre-seed funding gap in Finland, Estonia, and Sweden. The firm targets idea-stage companies with tickets of €150,000–€1.5 million, with Fund III targeting €30 million. Portfolio standouts include Hoxhunt (raised $40M Series B), Aibidia ($28M Series B), and ReOrbit (€45M Series A). Icebreaker is known for its diversity focus, backing 3.5× more immigrant founders than the Finnish VC average.
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ICEYE
ICEYE operates the world's largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, providing persistent Earth observation data regardless of weather or daylight conditions. Founded in 2014 as an Aalto University spin-off, the company builds its satellites in-house in Espoo and serves defence, insurance, disaster response and environmental monitoring customers. By 2026 it had launched over 35 satellites with a valuation of $2.8 billion, and signed contracts with the Finnish, Polish and Swedish armed forces for national SAR satellite programmes.
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Inka Mero
Inka Mero is the Founder and Managing Partner of Voima Ventures, a Finnish deep tech venture capital firm focused on science-based startups in quantum computing, synthetic biology, and advanced materials. She is one of Finland's most prominent venture investors and a vocal advocate for translating Nordic academic research into globally competitive companies. Mero is a regular keynote speaker at deep tech and innovation events across Europe and is a confirmed speaker at NORDEEP 2026.
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InstituteQ – The Finnish Quantum Institute
InstituteQ is Finland's national quantum research and innovation hub, a consortium of seven leading institutions: Aalto University (coordinator), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the Universities of Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Tampere and Oulu, and CSC-IT Centre for Science. It operates three pillars — InnoQ (innovation and ecosystem development), ResQ (fundamental and applied research), and EduQ (education and talent) — and hosts the Finnish Quantum Flagship, an eight-year initiative jointly funded by member organisations and the Research Council of Finland. InstituteQ organises the annual Finnish Quantum Days conference and publishes it on its domain instituteq.fi.
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Inventure
Inventure was founded in 2005 in Helsinki by Timo Tirkkonen, with Tuomas Kosonen (ex-Nokia, ex-Rovio CFO) joining shortly after; the firm manages approximately €377 million in assets under management across four funds, with Fund IV closing at €144 million. The firm backs Seed and Series A companies across the Nordics and Baltics with tickets of €300,000–€5 million, focusing on deep tech, B2B SaaS, consumer internet, health tech, and AI. Its portfolio includes Wolt, Swappie, and Stravito. Inventure is one of the most established and prolific seed-stage investors in the Nordic ecosystem.
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IQM Quantum Computers
IQM Quantum Computers is a full-stack quantum computing company founded in 2018 as a spin-off from Aalto University and VTT. It designs and manufactures superconducting quantum processors sold as on-premises systems to research institutions, supercomputing centres and enterprises. By early 2026 IQM had delivered 21 quantum systems to 13 customers globally and secured over €600 million in funding, including a €275 million Series B. The company reached unicorn status in September 2025 and announced plans for a public listing at a $1.8 billion valuation in February 2026.
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Jacob Fellman
Jacob Fellman is a Partner at NGP Capital, a global venture capital firm with Nordic roots that originated from Nokia's venture investment program and now invests independently in technology companies across Europe, the United States, and Asia. He focuses on deep tech and software investments with a strong presence in the Nordic startup ecosystem. Fellman is a confirmed investor speaker at NORDEEP 2026.
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Jan Goetz
Jan Goetz is the CEO and Co-founder of IQM Quantum Computers, a European leader in superconducting quantum computing hardware headquartered in Espoo, Finland. IQM designs and manufactures quantum processors for research institutions, national supercomputing centers, and commercial users across Europe and beyond. He is a central figure in the European quantum technology ecosystem and a confirmed speaker at NORDEEP 2026.
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Joost Elstak
Joost Elstak is SVP Missions at ICEYE, a Finnish space technology company founded in 2014 that operates one of the world's largest commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellations. ICEYE is widely regarded as one of the most prominent European space startups and a unicorn, providing near-real-time Earth observation data for disaster management, insurance, maritime, and government applications. In his role, Elstak oversees mission operations and delivery for ICEYE's growing customer base across both commercial and government sectors globally.
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Junction 2026
Europe's largest hackathon, held in Helsinki with 1,500+ developers, designers, and entrepreneurs building products in 48 hours around challenges set by corporate partners. Winners receive cash prizes and fast-track access to accelerators. Free admission (application-based).
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Lifeline Ventures
Lifeline Ventures was founded in 2009 in Helsinki by Petteri Koponen and Timo Ahopelto and has grown into Finland's largest VC focused on unlisted growth companies, raising its €400 million Fund VI in 2025. The firm invests at the angel and seed stage with tickets of €100,000–€2 million, backing sector-agnostic founders from day one across Europe. Lifeline has seeded most of Finland's best-known unicorns, including Supercell (acquired by Tencent for $8.6B), Wolt (acquired by DoorDash for $8.1B), Oura, ICEYE, and Aiven. With over 115 portfolio companies and more than a dozen exits, it is the benchmark early-stage firm in the Finnish ecosystem.
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Luovi Productions
Founded in Helsinki in 1995 by Kari Korkman, Luovi Productions is a cultural event production company specializing in curation, production, and communication for the design field. The company organizes Helsinki Design Week, the largest design and architecture festival in the Nordic region, held annually in late August and early September. Luovi Productions also produces the Fiskars Village Art and Design Biennale and PechaKucha events in Finland, and publishes Helsinki Design Weekly, a media outlet covering Finnish design culture.
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Maki.vc
Maki.vc was founded in 2018 in Helsinki by serial entrepreneur and Slush Chairman Ilkka Kivimäki and former F-Secure executive Pirkka Palomäki, and now manages €260 million across three funds. Its November 2024 Fund III of €100 million targets pre-seed and seed-stage companies across the Nordics and Northern Europe, with tickets of €300,000–€3 million, focusing on deep tech, AI-native, quantum computing, green tech, and brand-driven consumer startups. The fund is backed by LPs including founders of Skype, Wise, RELEX Solutions, Aiven, and Supercell. Portfolio includes IQM Quantum Computers (unicorn 2025) and Enfuce.
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Neural DSP
Neural DSP (Neural DSP Technologies Oy) is a Helsinki-based music technology company that builds guitar and bass amp-modeling software plugins, such as its Archetype series developed with artists like Gojira and Plini, alongside hardware including the Quad Cortex and Nano Cortex floorboard modelers. The company assembles its hardware at a factory near its Helsinki headquarters, where more than half of its 150+ person team is based. Neural DSP's plugins and devices are used by guitarists and bassists to recreate iconic amp and pedal tones digitally.
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NGP Capital
NGP Capital is a global venture capital firm that originated from Nokia's venture investment program and now operates independently, investing in technology startups across Europe, the United States, and Asia. The firm focuses on software, deep tech, and digital infrastructure investments and has maintained a strong presence in the Nordic startup ecosystem since its founding. NGP Capital has offices in Helsinki, Menlo Park, and Beijing, making it one of the Nordic region's most internationally active VC funds.
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Nightingale Health
Nightingale Health is the global leader in NMR-based metabolomics, quantifying 250 blood biomarkers from a single sample to enable large-scale disease risk detection and prevention. Founded in Helsinki, it completed the analysis of all 500,000 UK Biobank samples, creating the world's largest blood biomarker database. Listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Main Market since March 2025, the company is deploying its technology into Finnish public healthcare in 2026 through wellbeing services counties. It also partnered with Alamar Biosciences to expand into brain health proteomics.
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NORDEEP — Nordic Deep Tech Business Summit 2026
The Nordics' largest deep-tech business summit, in Espoo's Otaniemi hub, connecting deep-tech startups with funding, experts, talent, and clients. Built around commercialising research-based innovation.
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Nordic Business Forum 2026
Europe's leading business and leadership conference with 7,500+ attendees and world-class speakers (past speakers include Barack Obama, Brene Brown, and Reid Hoffman). Focuses on leadership, strategy, and scaling. Premium pricing from EUR 2,000+ but unmatched networking with Nordic business elite.
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Oura
Oura is a Finnish wearable company best known for the Oura Ring, a smart ring that packages continuous biometric sensing into a minimal consumer device. The product built its reputation through strong sleep and recovery tracking, then expanded into broader health insights around readiness, activity, stress, and women's health. What makes Oura significant in the European ecosystem is its ability to combine hardware design, sensor engineering, mobile product experience, and recurring software engagement into a durable health platform. Many consumer wearables compete on notifications and surface-level metrics; Oura instead positioned itself around insight quality, habit formation, and long-term user retention. That has made it a standout European example of a hardware-plus-subscription business that can scale globally without losing product clarity. In directory terms, Oura also broadens the map between consumer technology and healthtech, showing how European startups can build defensible products at the intersection of devices, data, and preventive care. Its success offers a useful contrast to pure software companies and highlights Finland's continued ability to produce globally relevant product and hardware talent.
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Pekka Laurila
Pekka Laurila is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder of ICEYE, the Finnish company that pioneered commercial SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite technology for earth observation. ICEYE has grown to operate one of the world's largest commercial SAR satellite constellations, serving customers in insurance, government, and disaster response globally. Laurila is a well-known figure in the Nordic space technology and deep tech ecosystems and is a keynote speaker at NORDEEP 2026.
