In case you missed it, earlier this year we introduced you to 10 promising startups from Finland to watch in 2021. Today, we’re zooming in and exploring its capital, Helsinki. Awarded with “City of Design” status by Unesco, Helsinki recently made it into our annual ranking of Europe’s biggest startup hubs. The Finnish capital is also home to some great startup and tech community events like Arctic15 and Slush.
For this article we’ve scouted exceptionally promising early-stage startups based in Helsinki, founded between 2018 and 2021, taking into consideration team size, funding, growth rate, innovation, and market size. And here comes our selection of 10 Helsinki-based startups to watch in 2021 and beyond:
Mainframe Industries is reimagining Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) gaming for the cloud-native future. Founded in 2019, the startup has raised over €9.5 million from top tech investors like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Helsinki-based VC firm Maki.vc. Cloud-native gaming means players can join from any device, without the need for a specific console – kind of like what Netflix or Spotify did for film and music. Mainframe Industries defined it as a sandbox MMO designed for cloud streaming, built on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.
Veri is designed for anyone who wants to improve their wellbeing by understanding how their body reacts to the food they eat. With Veri, customers get instant feedback on their meals from their glucose, giving them an outlook of how the food they eat, exercise, and sleep all affect their metabolism daily. Founded in 2019, the startup has secured about €4 million till date. Very is powered by continuous glucose monitors (CGM), allowing a sensor to automatically monitor glucose levels for up to eight hours. To get a glucose reading, users press Scan on the Veri app and place their iPhone near the sensor.
Reworks specializes in developing uplifting game experiences that spark creativity and imagination. Founded in 2018, Reworks has raised about €5.4 million so far to develop Redecor and other design games in the future. Redecor aims to become the #1 playground for home decor. It is a place to play, explore designs, find inspiration, and connect with others who share a passion for home decor. Users can play design challenges, mix and match thousands of home decor items, choose the winning combos and share their creativity with millions of fellow Redecorators.
Boksi is a content sourcing and influencer marketing platform. Launched in 2018, Boski has secured €2.2 million to make buying influencer marketing easy and affordable. The startup makes sourcing custom content and influencers effortless and efficient for brands. Businesses can get curated photos based on their brand’s unique needs, and source personalized content at scale from creators who engage with their audience. Boksi’s catalog offers content creators a wide variety of brands to choose from. Boksi also integrates fast and secured payments within its easy-to-use platform.
Spacent is a prop-tech startup specializing in creating more efficient and sustainable use of the space we have already built. Born in 2018, Spacent has raised nearly €2 million to provide the broadest network of remote working locations in the Nordics. Spacent’s platform combines office resources and on-demand workspaces, supporting productivity and freedom of choice. Teams get flexible space for their organisation’s hybrid workplace needs and planning future space use. Space providers can monetise the hybrid workplace demand and start selling spaces to Spacent customers.
IPRally is developing AI that thinks like a patent professional, increasing the productivity of inventors and patent people with its patent search. IPRally is using the latest machine learning and natural language processing techniques to harness the vast amounts of human patent intelligence stored in public databases to serve the IPR field. Born in 2018, the startup has raised already raised about €2.4 million to automate tasks that steal resources of both inventors and patent professionals and help them achieve their goals faster.
Calqulate is a financial analytics platform that helps SaaS and subscription companies understand their current and future business performance to achieve faster growth. They do this by combining all key subscription metrics, cash flow management, and financial forecasts to a single, easy-to-use platform. Since its founding in 2019, Calqulate has secured €1.6 million to enable its customers to report and forecast all key SaaS metrics such as MRR, LTV to CAC ratio, retention, and churn, and analyze the drivers behind them. Built-in cash flow management tracks how much money is coming in and going out of the business, and forecasts how much is available in the future.
Stealth Black is building products that assist humans to have higher-quality conversations and to find better solutions and proposals. Founded in 2020, the young company has raised €1.1 million to build Artificial Intelligence that negotiates better than human beings can. Stealth Black believes that in some cases computers can find and build better connections between humans than humans can by themselves only. The startup has built a machine that makes these connections in the B2B world, where every conversation tends to happen for a well-known reason.
Linear is on a mission to digitalize the real estate industry’s outdated work practices. Founded in 2019, Linear has raised €500K to develop a user-friendly platform that allows all stages of home sales and the ordering of services to be handled effortlessly under one system. Through Linear, real estate-related businesses can improve customer acquisition, increasing sales, and decreasing manual work. Linear also offers services such as 3D modeling, drone video, and aerial photos, virtual tours, and digital interior design.
GlucoModicum was founded in 2018 and is developing technology and products for needle-free health and biomarker monitoring. Their Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) wristwatch makes it comfortable and affordable for patients to have control over their glucose levels. All GlucoModicum products are connected devices. Data and insights are continuously synced with smartphones and can be uploaded to the cloud. This technology can serve as a platform for multiple different self-test devices. They aim to apply this technology to smaller-sized form factors such as a ring and a patch.
By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for exciting startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!
