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- Population 1.1 million
- Size 770km2
- Global cities index ranking N/A
The home of Rovio and Supercell is never short of gaming startups. "There are three hot categories in Helsinki right now," says Karolina Miller, CMO of Espoo-based accelerator Startup Sauna. "Fintech, virtual reality and obviously gaming, since there are so many startups doing that." Recent acquisitions show the strength of Helsinki's startups. Fintech startup Holvi was bought by Spanish bank BBVA in March 2016; a little later, Supercell became Europe's first ever "decacorn" after Chinese giant Tencent paid $8.6 billion (£6.5m) for an 84 per cent stake in the company.
Although investment in the Nordic region is booming - up from $846 million in 2014 to $1.82 billion in 2015 - Helsinki is in danger of falling behind its rivals , attracting only 15.3 per cent of Nordic funding in the second quarter of 2016, the first time it's received less than Norway.
"Finland has remained consistent, but Stockholm has pulled away from Helsinki as the dominant hub," says Neil Murray, founder of The Nordic Web. "It's almost a transitional period for them. They had a couple of big successes, but it's just stalled a little in the last couple of years." Still, there's no shortage of candidates. "Everyone's optimistic," says Miller, "even though our country's in a recession."
futureplaygames.comKalevankatu 34 A 10, 00180
Ex-Rovio executive vice-president Jami Laes and fellow gaming veterans Mika Rahko, Arttu Mäki, Kai Auvinen and Tuomas Huhtanen broke $1 million in revenue for their first mobile game, Farm Away!.
Now they're working on a new business model, known as view-to-play. "The fastest-growing part of the mobile market is mobile video ads," Laes says. "We want to do ads right, not as an afterthought and a nuisance for players."
seriously.comKaivokatu 10 A, 00100
More than 35 million people have downloaded Seriously's Best Fiends games, according to CEO Andrew Stalbow. Now the 45-person startup is trying to turn the trilogy into a multimedia brand.
"We're trying to build the 'Pixar of mobile'," says Stalbow, a former Rovio-er and former senior VP of mobile at 20th Century Fox . "That means two new games and the first animated shorts, set inside the Best Fiends universe." Northzone, an early backer of Spotify and Avito, led an $18m series A round in August 2015.
armadainteractive.comErottajankatu 5 C, 00130
Most mobile games don't use the platform properly, according to Finnish gaming veteran Samuli Syvähuoko, Armada's founder and CEO. "We're working on a UX innovation that will bring a deeper, more mature and more immersive core gaming experience to mobile," he says. Its real-time gameplay convinced Initial Capital to lead a $3 million round of seed financing in April 2016.
solu.coNeitsytpolku 12 F, 4600140
Kristoffer Lawson, Javier Reyes and Pekka Nikander are taking on Microsoft, Apple and Google with their wooden pocket computer designed for collaboration and working offline. Founded in 2014 with $1.3 million in seed funding, the company launched its 10cm2device through Kickstarter at a price of €349. There have been delays, but delivery is scheduled for summer 2016.
smartly.ioItämerenkatu 1, 00180
Launched in 2013, Kristo Ovaska and Tuomo Riekki's ad-optimisation platform grew revenue seven times in 2015 to €4.3 million and expanded to 75 people, with offices in San Francisco, Berlin and Singapore. It offers A/B testing and predictive budgeting for advertisers, first on Facebook then on Instagram, where it's been an early partner in experiments with clickable ads.
thecuriousaicompany.comSalomonkatu 17, 00100
AI pioneer Harri Valpola helped build robot waste sorter ZenRobotics. Now he's working on unsupervised machine learning. "We take AI a step further than others, namely DeepMind and Facebook," says COO Timo Haanpää. The 12-person research-led startup has €800,000 (£670,000) funding from Lifeline Ventures, Balderton Capital and Invus, and aims to launch its first product next year.
Haanpää says one the first applications is likely to be self-driving cars. "To be widely usable, autonomous vehicles must have the capability to learn by themselves from the data they gather. Unsupervised learning promises to be the key, but first we need to put the science in place."
umbra3d.comKalevankatu 30, 00100
Spun off from Hybrid Graphics in 2006, Umbra's graphics-rendering software handles large 3D files for games on everything from PlayStation to PCs. It closed a $3.4 million series A round in October 2015 to fund its work in virtual reality, where it claims it can stream vast, complex 3D scans on to smartphones without any noticeable loss of speed.
wolt.comKöydenpunojankatu 2a D, 00180
Launched in 2014, the food-delivery app raised €10 million in April 2016 to expand into Stockholm, with other Nordic and Baltic cities on the horizon. Slush founder Miki Kuusi, 26, its co-founder, is a well-known face on the Helsinki scene, and Wolt's influential backers include Skype founder Niklas Zennström and Ilkka Paananen, CEO of Supercell.
moni.comYliopistonkatu 5, 00100
Founded by Basemotion mastermind Antti Pennanen, this fintech startup offers prepaid MasterCards so travellers can pay without charges, and a money-transfer app that allows interest-free loans between friends. Its profile soared in February 2016, when the Finnish immigration service announced it would use it to make payments to some of Finland's 50,000 refugees.
futurefly.netPursimiehenkatu 26, 00150
With $2.5 million in seed funding from investors including Arielle Zuckerberg, Futurefly co-founders Oskari Häkkinen and Pietari Päivänen built Rawr Messenger, a gamified chat app released in May 2016. "The plumbing works much the same as in WhatsApp, but you have a 3D avatar you create and communicate through," Häkkinen says. "Interacting feels new."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
