Startup funding for international growth

No. You can already have for example a Proof of Concept, as long as there is still 
significant demanding development work left. 

Yes. Sprint fits well as the first Business Finland funding for research‑based companies. 

Early is fine if you meet the other criteria, as long as there is a concrete innovation and 
development plan. Pure ideas without execution plans are not enough. 

Business Finland evaluates funding applications based on the following criteria:

The origin of the idea and the company
The company was founded to commercialize a business idea based on the latest scientific research, and it has strong intellectual property rights and/or other intellectual property based on this.

Intellectual property 
The company is in control of the intellectual property rights and other intellectual property rights that are essential to the business, and the company has sufficient freedom to operate in the international target market. A possible rights transfer agreement is valid and the company has the right to the results of its own further development work. The company has the ability to expand its intellectual property and acquire additional protection.

Business 
Value creation, business potential and competitiveness are based on documented and state-of-the-art scientific research. The company's solution has significant international business potential and its competitiveness has been preliminarily demonstrated. The company has independent decision-making power over business operations and is not a subsidiary.

Solution
The key research problems have mainly been solved and the functionality of the technology has been verified. The performance and competitiveness of the solution have been preliminarily demonstrated. The solution is not yet a ready-to-sell product or service, and its development through R&D projects is still ongoing.  The degree of readiness of the solution must be at a level where it is justified to start commercialisation measures and investments in business development. The solution has not been used for business, with the exception of paid pilot projects.

Team 
The team has credible expertise in the development of research-based technology and business. The extent of ownership of the full-time founding team and the structure of the company's ownership base must allow for additional investments in the company.

Level of risk 
There is a significant risk associated with the technical functionality of the solution and market access.

Impact and the desired change 
The company aims for significant and scalable international business. The growth targets are realistic in relation to the proposed investments in development and market entry. The funding has a significant impact on the implementation of the project and the achievement of the goals.

Total funding
The company must have self-financing and the company's total financing in order for the duration of the DTA period. The total funding must be secured, the money must be in the account, and the company must not have any open financing terms in other projects. The deadline for securing the total funding is given in the call for applications. In addition, the company must have a carefully prepared financing plan and the prerequisites and willingness to raise investments in the company.

In addition, the following requirements apply to DTA funding

• Your company must be a limited liability company registered in Finland and be included in the prepayment and employer registers.
• Your company must be less than five years old when the funding decision for the first period is made. Business Finland can accept DTA project costs until the company turns eight years old at the latest. If your company is part of a group, all companies in the group must be under five years old at the time of the financing decision and under eight years before the end of the financing. The age is calculated from the date of registration of the company's business ID.
• The size of your company is small: you have less than 50 employees and your annual turnover or balance sheet total is no more than EUR 10 million.
• At least 10 per cent of your company's total costs have been allocated to research and development activities in one of the previous three years (for the financial year that has ended).
• The company must have at least one full financial year behind it.
• Your company has not continued the operations of another company and the product has not been commercialized in another company before.
• Your company was not created through a merger. An exception is a situation where the merged companies are under 5 years old.
• Your company has not gone public and has not distributed profits. Profit distribution refers to the distribution of dividends and the distribution of assets from the unrestricted equity fund or the acquisition and redemption of the company's own shares. An exception is the purchase of own shares, which may only be allocated to a small part of the share capital, which is worth no more than EUR 300. Retrospective remedies for the repurchase or redemption of the company's own shares will not be approved.

The above requirements must be met. The funding granted by Business Finland is discretionary, and decision-making follows the normal evaluation and decision-making process. In addition to the financial situation and the content of the project, the assessment takes into account, for example, the company's resources to implement the project, the share of public funding from the company's previous years, and the implementation of previous projects and the utilisation of their results.

The projects to be funded must meet the basic requirements given in the call for proposals, but the fulfilment of the criteria does not necessarily lead to the granting of funding, but the applications that responded to the call compete with each other and, as a whole, the best are selected for funding based on the selection criteria. Business Finland does not make conditional decisions in connection with the DTA application.