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After a lean few years following Nokia's decline and economic recession, Finland's capital is feeling confident. "The maturity of the scene has developed," says Miki Kuusi, co-founder and CEO of food-delivery startup Wolt.
Signs of growth are everywhere, from IPOs for game firms Remedy and Next Games to a 2016 increase in early-stage investment of 42 per cent in 2016, taking the total amount raised to €383 million (£337m). Add to that several notable acquisitions – including the sale of sleep-tracking startup Beddit to Apple for an undisclosed sum in May 2017 – and the positive vibes seem justified. "It's still very early for Helsinki," says Kuusi, "but the overall direction seems very promising."
Aki Soudunsaari, Niko Järvinen and Mika Tyrväinen's connected green walls circulate and purify indoor air for more than 300 companies. It was founded in 2011, and crowdfunded €2.2 million (£1.9m) in April 2016 through Pepins. It's since raised €3.2 million in a round led by Delos in January 2017. naava.io
Since they last appeared on this list in 2015, Yousician founders Chris Thür and Mikko Kaipainen have grown revenue from their music-teaching software by 200 per cent to €10 million. A key moment came when the 70-person firm opened its platform to let subscribers add their own exercises. yousician.com
Kristo Ovaska and Tuomo Riekki's ad-optimisation platform has grown its annual revenues from €4.3 million in 2015 to €14 million in 2016. The service, which facilitates more than £1 billion in ad spend on Facebook and Instagram annually, opened its fifth office, in Buenos Aires. smartly.io
Founded in 2017 by former Slushers Rudi Skogman, Juha Jokela, Samu Hautala and Olli Gunst, Blok speeds up house sales by automating time-consuming and repetitive tasks such as the collection and digitisation of documents. The six-person firm has 20 apartments for sale through its service. blok.ai
With a library of 20,000+ songs, Singa is trying to do for karaoke what Spotify did for artists, by streaming music to businesses and bedroom singers for £9.99 a month. The 13-person firm raised a €1.75 million seed round led by London's Initial Capital in 2017, to fund expansion into Germany and the UK. sin.ga
Juha Valvanne, Antti Pöyhönen and Jani Luostarinen's e-commerce startup personalises online shopping for more than 25,000 retailers in 100 countries. "We are able to leverage vast amounts of data to uncover insights into what drives successful shopping experiences," says CMO Isaac Moshe. nosto.com
Launched in 2014, Vainu scrapes the web to generate sales leads, feeding everything from social profiles to recruiting news into its software-as-a-service integration. The 100-person firm, which has offices in Helsinki, Oslo, Amsterdam, New York and Stockholm, has more than 1,200 subscribers paying, on average, €400 a month. vainu.io
Founders Teemu Tuulari, Teemu Harju and Andreas Wedenberg helped create Shadow Cities, the first location-based multiplayer game. When they saw the success of Pokémon Go, they joined up with Alex Pushilin and Emma Houvinen to try again. Supercell has invested $2.9 million. shipyard.games
Finland's latest top-end graphics company has an impressive pedigree: founders Urho Konttori, Klaus Melakari and Roope Rainisto all held senior positions at Microsoft and Nokia before founding Varjo. The VR startup says its "bionic" display mimics the human eye: "It runs at 100 times the resolution of Oculus' CV1," Konttori claims. varjo.com
Tuomas Riski's clean-tech startup builds sails for freight ships to help them save fuel and reduce emissions. Its technology - a cylinder that harnesses wind power to create forward propulsion - gained €2.6 million of funding in 2016. Riski says it can reduce fuel costs by 20 per cent a year. norsepower.com
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
