Elisa Finland Startup Partnerships

Elisa seeks startups to purchase innovations from as an early customer. They’re also seeking mature startups to acquire.

Their focus is on solutions that help them sell more connectivity solutions or additional services to their current customers. E.g. automation, industry 4.0, health care, entertainment, smart homes etc.

They’re happy to connect with startups that are interested in Finnish or Nordic-Baltic market.

Jätkäsaari Mobility Lab

Jätkäsaari Mobility Lab offers ways to pilot solutions in real-life city context in Helsinki, Finland. Their sweet spot is solutions that are ready to be tested, but they’re happy to discuss also with idea stage projects to see about future collaboration potential. The solutions should be related to safe and sustainable smart mobility.

They have 1-2 agile piloting calls per year, but also ongoing applications, so feel free to contact them any time.

The most recent call is open until 18.8.2020 with a maximum cost of one agile pilot being €15 000.

Redstone

Redstone has six funds and 50 CVC partners. Their funds and sectors are listed in https://www.redstone.vc/sector-funds/. They are especially interested in industry 4.0, fintech, proptech, mobility, bio materials & agrotech.

Finnish Business Angels Network (FIBAN)

One of the largest business angel networks in the world with 650 members.

Ticket range of most angels is €5-100k, median ticket size is €20k. Syndicates may invest up to €1M. Median syndicate size is €200k.

 

Smart Chemistry Park

Smart Chemistry Park is the bio and circular economy startup and innovation hub of Turku Science Park. They offer premises and infrastructure for chemistry-related startups and a network of innovators. They’re a part of the wider Clean Turku network.

Their infrastructure helps mostly startups with a a need for laboratory facilities and physical piloting, but digital-only solutions are also welcome to the network. The premises are suitable also for many pharmaceutical development projects.

 

UIA Hope

Forum Virium’s UIA Hope competition offers piloting opportunities for air quality related startups. The competition has over €200k budgeted for helping small companies pilot their air quality solutions. Piloting budgets are €5k – €40k per company depending on the track (available on their website).

Even the smallest companies can participate and offer their pilot projects for experimentation, but there needs to be a company registered in Finland by the time the pilot starts.

The solutions can be virtual or practical; hardware, software or other solutions. It has to be implementable, not completely abstract. Solution has to relate to digitality, but does not need to be completely digital.

The pilot offer can be sent in English and can be done as a PowerPoint or similar. The information on the competition itself is currently available only in Finnish, but can be translated to English upon first request. General information of the UIA Hope program is in English.

 

ProHealth Accelerator

ProHealth Accelerator can be thought of more like a hub than a typical accelerator. They have a network of mentors, potential customers and other resources for health startups. Applications are ongoing, and there is no formal acceleration program, but they organize expert events, workshops and other forms of support for their members.

Their support is focused on helping commercialize health innovations. Most of their members’ are selling their solutions to professionals (B2B, B2B2C, B2G), but B2C solutions are also possible.

They have a partnership with Verstas Labs, whose open business premises ProHealth members have access to. Verstas also offers laboratory and private business premises for rent, with the laboratory equipment and maintenance included.

Participating companies have to be based in or move to Finland.

Kiuas

Kiuas is a completely free and possibly the most well-known student-led accelerator in Finland. It’s completely free. In addition to the program itself, participating startups will get a toolbox of startup goodies, including free cloud platform credits etc.

Application period for the summer 2020 program is until Wed 20.5.2020. Autumn batch will likely be held in October-November, with application period in September.

The program is usually held onsite in Espoo, Finland, but the summer 2020 program is held as a remote, virtual one. The program is focused for helping startups integrate with their alumni and mentor community in Finland, so any non-Finnish startups that apply should be ready to move to Finland.

Their spring and autumn batches are three-week pre-acceleration programs called Kiuas Start, for which idea stage startups are welcome. The main program in the summer requires the team to have a working solution already. The nine-week main program focuses on developing product-market fit, customer relationships, team and culture building for growth, and preparing for funding rounds.

Accelerace

Accelerace’s acceleration programs are based in Denmark, but most can be participated in remotely. All their programs are free of charge, no equity taken. They have an extensive network of corporate partners internationally, especially in Europe.

Most of their programs can be participated in remotely, but some may require either physical presence or a registered in Denmark.

Their focus areas are life science, sound, energy, food and beverage, entertainment, IoT. They run more than one program per year per average in each of their focus areas, and typically at least one program’s application period is open on any given time.

They have a fund to invest in the best of their participating startups. The investment tickets are 500k DKK, which is approximately €65k. These investments are done as a convertible note, and are completely optional for the startup to accept or not. It’s done as a co-investment, so the startup has to have another investor investing a minimum of 125k DKK (approx €17k) at the same time. Accelerace is happy to help find suitable investors.

Their life science tech startup mentorship program is highly rated in the Nordics. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland. It’s funded by the Novo Nordic foundation.

They also partner with Overkill Ventures in Riga, Latvia.

Turku Science Park LevelUp

Incubation service in Turku, Finland, that has been running already for six years. Participating startups should have graduated from an acceleration program or be otherwise ready to sell their product to early customers.

They offer a network of mentors and industry contacts in addition to a working space for 12 months. The program is completely free of charge.

Their program for the autumn 2020 is being designed and its detailed information is expected to be released in the summer. You can ask more from marko.puhtila@turkubusinessregion.com.