Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa want to attract foreign start-ups to the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. This requires that entrepreneurs become interested in Finland and believe in finding success here. How can the cities convince companies to move here?
Finland wants to attract foreign talents, especially start-up entrepreneurs. New entrepreneurs can provide increased tax revenues and create new jobs. Successful start-up companies attract even more international experts, creating a virtuous cycle.
But how to make foreign companies interested in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area? Every European country is competing for these same talented people. Sleet, darkness and silent Finns may not be the best assets when competing with cities like Amsterdam.
One way is to make entering and settling in Finland easier. At the national level, the issue has been addressed by speeding up the residence permit process for promising start-ups. In the national model, Business Finland first assesses a company’s business plan, after which the Finnish Immigration Service processes the residence permit application through an accelerated procedure.
Residence permits are a good start, but they are not enough. What can cities do to make entrepreneurs pack their bags and move to Finland?
– If Finland could attract a hundred successful high-growth companies like Wolt or Oura, our national economy would become problem-free, Mikko Armila from Business Helsinki declares. Armila’s job is to develop soft-landing services for start-ups in Helsinki.
The City of Helsinki is part of the HEVi programme, in which Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and local RDI actors jointly develop the innovation activities and networks in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The three cities have worked together and planned methods for attracting international start-up growth companies and facilitating their move to Finland.
Armila explains that the first step is to reach the right target groups, i.e. entrepreneurs who have a genuine chance for success in Finland. This can be achieved through cooperation with Finnish and international partners, such as Business Finland.
– For example, an active Business Finland employee in Türkiye has introduced us to the local start-up circles and helped us visit their events, Armila explains.
In addition to visits to target countries, the HEVi network also organises its own events in Finland, such as a visit to Slush. The purpose of the events is to give an introduction of the start-up ecosystem in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area to a selected group of companies. Almost 130 companies applied to the latest event, of which the top 20 were selected.
According to Armila, the cities are very much like angel investors in the way they carefully assess companies interested in Finland. In addition to assessing a company’s business plan, Armila and his team also do things like interviewing the entrepreneurs and their teams. Their aim is to find out how ready companies are for the new market.
If a company meets the cities’ criteria, it will be directed to Business Finland, who provide help with residence permits. When all the paperwork is done, the HEVi network helps companies with other matters, such as finding suitable financing opportunities.
– Once a company is registered in Finland, it can receive the same type of support as any Finnish company. For example, Finnvera grants and guarantees loans of up to EUR 50,000 to start-ups, Armila explains.
Financial support further binds companies to Finland; obtaining a loan, for example, requires that the company’s headquarters remain in Finland. If entrepreneurs move to Finland with their family, the network helps them with finding schools and daycare services for their children, among other things. Free high-quality education is a strong incentive for many.
Companies arrive to the Helsinki Metropolitan Area particularly from outside of Europe, from countries like Türkiye and India. According to Armila, it is impossible to give one singular answer to why companies choose Finland.
– The majority of these companies move to Finland in order to expand to Europe, as their domestic market is too small for them. On the other hand, Türkiye is a country where the domestic market is large, but the state interferes with companies, and they desire more breathing room. They can find that in Finland, Armila points out.
The HEVi cities are particularly interested in companies that complement their existing business ecosystems. For example, Helsinki wants to attract EdTech companies, i.e. companies that develop innovations related to learning. Meanwhile, Vantaa is interested in aviation logistics and energy technology, whereas Espoo is interested in deep technology. Despite these preferences, the cities are interested in all types of companies.
Konstantin Elgazin and Alexandr Sobchenko are game industry entrepreneurs who ran the PPLLAAYY game studio in St. Petersburg. The company’s most popular mobile games have been downloaded more than 200 million times.
Elgazin and Sobchenko became interested in Finland in 2017, when they participated in an event in St. Petersburg that the Consulate General of Finland organised for game companies.
– We decided then that we would publish our next game series in Finland, as Finland is a centre of the gaming industry: everyone knows Finnish games such as Angry Birds and Supercell’s Brawl Stars, Konstantin Elgazin recounts.
Oleg Paliy, who organised the Consulate General’s game event, then directed the two entrepreneurs to Helsinki Partners. Helsinki Partners helped them find Mikko Armila and his team.
Moving to Finland and setting up a new company required the right timing. That time came in 2023, when Elgazin and Sobchenko founded Stupidella Ltd in Finland. The company is developing a game series with the same name. It published nine new games in 2024.
Business Helsinki helped Elgazin and Sobchenko in practical arrangements of setting up a company, such as preparing a plan for the start-up, registering it and finding useful networks through events such as Slush and Arctic15. Elgazin notes that having one reliable source for advice on any matter and at any time is very valuable.
What happens to companies after they arrive in Finland? Armila explains that some are highly successful, and others are not – such is the nature of start-ups. Those who fail can come up with something else and may create new companies.
– In December 2023, an entrepreneur contacted me. In the following spring, they had already set up a company in Helsinki. After a few months, I heard that they had already acquired a couple of million euros in a funding round. Now they are building international business activities, and their turnover has tripled.
The cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa have set a goal of attracting 50 growing start-up companies in three years. After only one and a half years since the target was set, 47 companies have already arrived.
The exact tax revenue generated by the new companies is still difficult to calculate. Conservative estimates of the tax revenue received by the City of Helsinki during the project are around EUR 800,000 if all newly arrived companies are successful and remain here.
Armila considers this to be a great achievement, as a company may need to spend up to a year just moving to Finland. No one decides to move to a new country on light grounds, especially people whose family will move with them. And if a company has more than one founder, the time needed for decision-making and practical arrangements is multiplied.
– Getting companies to move here requires that our cities cooperate closely. Entrepreneurs are making the biggest decisions in their lives, and we must convince them that coming here is truly worth it, Armila declares.
Helsinki Region Softlanding Services for Startups (LYPPE) project is co-funded by the European Union. The project’s budget is €1,492,759, of which the ERDF contribution is €857,858. The project started on January 1, 2023, and will end on December 31, 2025. LYPPE is part of the HEVinnovations program’s (HEVi) project portfolio.
HEVi is a joint innovation program of the cities of Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa, aimed at developing a more sustainable Helsinki Metropolitan Area and the world’s most efficient testbed and innovation environment. HEVi’s operations are based on the Helsinki Metropolitan Area innovation ecosystem agreement, which has been signed between the metropolitan cities for the period 2021–2027.
Contact information
Mikko Armila
Startup Soft Landing Lead
Business Helsinki
+358 406240671
The City of Helsinki, together with the cities of Espoo and Vantaa, is part of the Innocities network. One of the objectives of Innocities is to develop ecosystems in various ways, such as by supporting the creation of new growth sectors and clusters that are difficult to predict. Ecosystem development helps the cities respond to changes in the operating environment.
