Your company has its own product or service

• You have developed the product or service idea at least up to the pilot phase.

You need outside expertise in internationalization

• You are at the initial stages of internationalization, or you already operate internationally, but want to expand to new areas.
• You have a need of a new expert to find out how your products, services or business model might work in a new export market.

Your company is a small or medium-sized enterprise or a midcap company

• Small or medium-sized enterprise: less than 250 employees, maximum turnover of 50 million euros or an annual balance sheet not exceeding 43 million euros
• Midcap company: maximum corporate turnover of 300 million euros

Committed team

• Your company employs a dedicated team in which at least one person has a full-time job developing the business, and the team has complementary expertise from members in other areas.
• We do not fund single-person businesses.
• A minimum team consists of, for example, one full-time person and two part-time persons in Finland.

Talent Explorer funding can be used to hire an internationalization expert to provide new information and expertise about your target market, and help your company make progress in the new international market. The hired expert may be an international student who has graduated from a Finnish university or university of applied sciences, or a graduate thesis student who has international expertise or knowledge of the target market. Knowledge of the target market may be cultural knowledge, language skills or networks in the target market.

Find an international expert with Business Finland's Talent Boost program

Examples of activities you can use Talent Explorer funding for

• Creating an internationalization plan and strategy
• Researching business opportunities
• Preliminary concept design
• Market survey of an existing product in a new market
• Researching localization needs
• Test marketing to collect data for a market survey
  • We can approve the services purchased for test marketing as project expenses, provided that the test marketing is clearly delineated: you must have specified target markets and customer segments prior to starting the test marketing, and its maximum duration is two months.
  • In addition, a project that includes test marketing must always include the purchase of an expert service that produces added value.
• Market analyses and competitive analysis
• Survey of retailers and distribution partners
• Examination of legal and standards requirements and analysis of international product protection for existing products

What can the funding not be used for?

• You cannot use Market Explorer funding for costs arising from testing, or applying for or expanding markings and product protection. Nor is Talent Explorer intended for operational activities such as sales or marketing.
• We do not grant Talent Explorer funding to industries that are excluded from de minimis funding (primary agricultural production, fisheries and aquaculture).
• We also do not fund retail companies with Talent Explorer: your company must offer its own product or service.

Ensure that you have adequate funds for self-financing

• Talent Explorer funding is a grant that is paid to your company retrospectively, based on the actual costs you report.
• Your company must be able to adequately self-finance the project. Adequate financing means that your company can cover the expenses of the entire project before it receives the grant disbursement from Business Finland.

Get these financial things in order

We cannot grant funding for your company if:

• Your company has not provided financial statements to the Finnish Patent and Registration Office, or your company's financial statements have not been audited as per the Auditing Act. (If your company does not have any audited financial statements yet, please submit, along with your application, an income statement that is no more than 2 months old, and a balance sheet ledger for the current accounting period.)
• Your company is not in the prepayment register
• Your company's credit rating (Rating Alfa) according to Suomen Asiakastieto is below A
• Your company has tax debts, for which a payment plan has not been agreed with the tax authorities
• Your company has arrears, payment defaults or other outstanding financial obligations from previous Tekes or Business Finland loans.

Please make sure to sort out the above matters before applying for funding.

Check de minimis funding

Talent Explorer funding is de minimis support. A company can receive de minimis support of up to €200,000 in the current and two previous fiscal years.

The company must assess, at the application stage, how much de minimis funding it has received in the previous years. Companies belonging to the same group or controlled by the same party (for example, same majority owner) are considered one company. Such aid is granted by a range of public organizations, such as Finnvera and the ELY Centers.

Read more about de minimis aid

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

The funding terms and conditions describe the costs that Business Finland can fund, how we monitor your project costs and how you should report on the progress of your project.

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

Send your application and attachments via our online service. You can also keep track of the processing of your application in the online service.

Go to the online service

Set your project targets

In the application form, you will be asked to set 2–5 measurable targets for your project. The targets must be related to concrete outcomes of the project and the development of your company's business. The project targets will be recorded in the funding decision, and Business Finland will monitor their fulfillment. Accomplishing these targets has a significant impact when applying for potential further financing from Business Finland.

Please describe the targets in the form "outcomes of the project upon its completion".

Examples of project targets:

• collected and gained information about a new market/customer group and the suitability of the product or service there
• surveyed the product's localization needs in the new market
• surveyed the legal requirements for entering the new market
• surveyed other issues regarding advancement in the new international market
• identified x potential collaboration partners
• identified x potential customers or customer groups

APPENDIX 1: Project Plan

As a part of your application, we will ask you to submit a project plan. You can either type your plan in the application form, in the ("Project realization: Please describe the intended use of the funding you are applying for") field or attach it to the application in a separate file.

Please detail at least the following items in your project plan:

• Your company's own product or service
• Your company's vision and the role of the Talent Explorer project in the accomplishment of that vision
• The project realization, resources and schedule
  • Targets
  • Who the hired expert is, and what kind of knowledge of the target market they have
  • Whether the project is going to entail test marketing and how it has been delimited
  • Schedule
• Next steps: what will be done after the completion of the project, how your company is going to take advantage of the results of the project

APPENDIX 2: Information about he company finances

If your company does not have any audited financial statements yet, please submit, along with your application, an income statement that is no more than 2 months old, and a balance sheet ledger for the current accounting period.

In order to make the funding decision, we may ask your company for additional information, if necessary.

APPENDIX 3: The new hiree's CV

Attach the CV of the person you intend to hire to your application.

Eligible costs

Business Finland can accept costs starting from the date the application was submitted, at the earliest.

Acceptable costs for a Market Explorer project are the salary of a new hiree, the personnel costs associated with their employment, and other similar costs. In the application service, only enter the costs of the hired expert in your project's estimated cost: salary, personnel costs up to 30%, and other expenses up to 20% of total salaries.

The following costs cannot be accepted as project costs

• The salary costs of your company's current staff or their travel
• The purchase of materials, supplies or equipment
• Rental costs
• Services purchased from outside experts
• Costs due to supporting exports or export marketing
• Operational sales and marketing services (for example, translation services and the creation of a website)