Vibrant startup ecosystem in an open business environment

Finland offers a stable business environment for startups. It's an excellent testbed for new technologies. In Finland you simply have all you need: highly-educated and tech-savvy people, a stable infrastructure for testing, and the best know-how in digital technologies.

Finland has become increasingly attractive for both Finnish and international investors. A large number of accelerators, incubators and venture capital funds are ready to invest in promising startups.

The Finnish society is safe, stable and transparent, with a low level of bureaucracy. The government offers funding and services for innovative early-stage companies and supports universities in commercializing their ideas. 

Perfect location in the EU

Finland's capital Helsinki has been viewed as the startup center of Northern Europe. The country's location in the northeast corner of the EU makes it a great place for companies looking to expand to Europe, while keeping an eye open for Asian markets.

Finland offers plenty of attractive funding opportunities for startups. Public and private investments in startups have grown steadily for several years. The average investment as much as doubled in the last two years. In 2020, for example, Business Finland provided startups with 142M€ in funding.

The Slush startup-investor conference, organized in Helsinki every November, is an exciting reason to visit Helsinki. This full-blown startup festival brings together 20,000 people from over 100 countries. Recently, the festival has been organized successfully in virtual form.

Uniquely collaborative startup ecosystem

The success of the Finnish startup scene can be traced to the thriving collaboration between the state, startups, companies and the highly ranked universities. The startup scene began booming around ten years ago, catalyzed by a vibrant community of university students.

Today, there is almost a hypercollaborative spirit in the scene, where ideas and technologies are openly shared from university labs and research centers to startups and corporations. In addition to the growing amount of venture capital flowing into the country, the Finnish state supports startups in various ways.