Not only is Finland one of the happiest countries in the world, but it’s also a thriving hub of innovation and tech development. The Nordic nation stands out for many reasons – it has a super high quality of life, beautiful landscapes and plenty of entrepreneurial opportunities.
Finnish air is famously some of the cleanest in the world and it certainly breathes fresh energy into startup innovation. The country brought us pioneering companies like Nokia and Wolt and it’s consistently setting itself apart for embracing green technologies and digital advancement. With events such as Slush bringing Europe’s best and brightest in the startup ecosystem together to share ideas and inspiration, it’s a vibrant country developing the tech that influences tomorrow. Indeed, about 90% of the Finnish innovations born in the last decade support the realization of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
2022 was a record-breaking year for Finland, with new milestones being reached and impressive funding deals being closed. We wanted to take a closer look in order to identify the companies that we think are going to make an impact over the next year.
Here, find 10 super-promising and fast-growing Finnish startups, all founded since 2020, that we reckon you should keep a close eye on:
Yahaha: Quickly becoming one of Finland’s most recognisable startups, Yahaha is a startup offering a no-code creation platform for 3D interactive content, creating immersive virtual world experiences. Created in Helsinki in 2020, it offers a modular set of services for game development, including art assets. Developers of varying experience levels can create or monetize games within Yahaha Studio’s editing tool. Virtual experiences are the trend of the year in content consumption and creation, and Yahaha is leading the way in creating interactive social scenarios for users to create real-world immersive “ReadyPlayerOne” experiences. The firm has raised a sizable €115 million, and given the growing popularity of all things virtual and meta, it is certain to keep on growing.
Flowrite: Founded in 2020, Flowrite is supercharging daily communication by turning words into ready-to-send emails and messages. Communications tech is a growing sector, and one Flowrite has the potential to establish itself in – already having professional clients who work with the likes of Stripe, Google and Meta. Ever opened an email or message and had your mind go blank? Struggle to know how to put things into words, with the right tone? Or maybe you’re not so confident about your grammar? Flowrite is offering a solution. After writing a couple of short sentences that give a basis for what you want to say, Flowrite automatically generates a unique email or message that is ready to send, saving time for users and providing confidence. Based in the Finnish capital Helsinki, Flowrite has raised about €4.6 million and its team is growing fast.
Veri: This healthtech startup is helping people improve their metabolic health through an app and wearable tech that provides actionable insights and recommendations on nutrition and lifestyle habits. The startup’s aim is to help people feel better in their bodies through a better understanding of what they put into them every day. With the harsh truth that across the globe our metabolic health is suffering, Veri wants to empower us to make a change. Diabetes, obesity and insulin resistance are three illnesses all on the rise, that, through health misinformation, are not going anywhere. Too often, people are mis-sold and misled on how to have better health – told to focus on calories rather than the quality of food. The Veri mobile app, combined with a wearable glucose sensor, means users can make more informed food choices and directly improve their health. Founded in 2020, it has raised a total of €11 million.
P2X Solutions: Based in Espoo, P2X Solutions is building a 20 MW electrolyzer plant that uses electricity generated by renewable sources and green hydrogen will be the result. Electrolysis has been successfully used to produce hydrogen and they will achieve significant cost savings with the plant size they have selected. P2X Solutions uses Power-to-X technology to further refine some of the green hydrogens. In addition to capturing carbon dioxide emissions, they apply circular economy solutions by using carbon dioxide and green hydrogen to create synthetic biofuel. It was born in 2020 and has raised €15 million in total funding.
Huuva: Founded in 2021, Huuva wants to make great food available everywhere. The Helsinki-based team is building delivery-focused restaurant cohorts around cities and suburbs, focusing on bringing new quality restaurant options to yet unserved neighbourhoods. Since September 2021, Huuva has opened six kitchens around the greater Helsinki area. Each of Huuva’s kitchens gathers 3-6 well-known restaurant brands under one roof, enabling consumers to order their favourite dishes from multiple brands in one delivery. the startup is also committed to community awareness. It raised €4.9 million last summer and has secured partnerships with several top restaurant brands in Finland.
Onego Bio: Biotech startup Onego Bio is bringing you the egg without the chicken. Founded in Espoo, the startup has developed an animal-free egg white with precision fermentation, offering a sustainable alternative to the world’s most popular protein. It raised 14.5 million last year through a €10 million raise in February and then a €4.5 million extension at the end of the summer. has sped up the development of its egg white without using any animals. Onego Bio uses a commercially proven Trichoderma technology to solve the environmental problems associated with eggs. This safe, sustainable and cost-effective precision fermentation method produces ovalbumin, the most abundant egg white protein, and the team believes this chosen technology is superior because of its efficiency and productivity. It also provides significant benefits to the environment, food security, as well as animal welfare.
Cactos: A Finnish firm with an aim to put an end to harmful energy habits. This greentech startup creates a circular, more effective energy system for Europe by converting used electric vehicle batteries into smart energy storage devices. Born in 2021, Cactos provides a full-service fleet of distributed energy storage systems based on smart energy storage units and a cloud computing service. The energy storage units are made from re-used Tesla EV batteries, making them one of the market’s most environmentally friendly energy storage units. They also provide an end-of-life solution for the electrification of transport and encourage a fully circular economy. The impact-driven team secured €2.5 million last year.
Synergi: Driven by impact, Synergi is helping homes to become smarter about their energy consumption – empowering them to save money and help the global energy transition. Founded in 2022 by three young entrepreneurs, the vision is to give Europeans more power over their energy bills and emission output and balance the electricity grid. As a starting point, users can connect their electric vehicles (EVs) or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) to the software and smartly charge them. Synergi secured €800k last year and this year the team plan to enable users to connect their solar production, heat pumps, water boilers and other major household energy resources to the platform and use them smartly.
Membrane Finance: Based in Turku, this fintech startup specializes in creating financial software and services that link conventional financial infrastructure with blockchain-based services. It develops tablecoin infrastructure, software, and services and is the team behind EUROe – a fully reserved, Euro-nominated stablecoin that brings fiat Euro liquidity on-chain. Founded in 2021, the startup has already secured €2 million as it works to create an ecosystem of user-friendly applications, secure financial infrastructure, and stablecoin-related services that will encourage the use of cutting-edge blockchain technologies throughout Europe.
Apiable: Founded in 2020, Apiable was built with the aim of solving the problem of inadequate tools for API management. Simply, put, they want to address the lack of tools for companies that want to invest in the API ecosystem, and make it a more accessible space. Give all organisations the chance to be API-able. Based in Helsinki, the young team secured €479k last November as investors recognised the potential in this company. By taking a no-code approach, Apiable customers can set up their own branded API portal in less than an hour – meaning they can focus instead on growing their business rather than assigning resources to development.
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!
