With NHL Player as Investor, Finnish HVO aims for the U.S.

Finnish startup HVO developed a website where finding a body health professional is simple and easy to find; type in a keyword and your region and a list of service providers pops up. In addition to reviews you can also check if there’s any appointments available, all from the website. As an appointment booker for health professionals, it sounds similar to Finnish-founded and now San Francisco-based BetterDoctor.

The website, hyvinvointi-online.fi (rough translation being wellbeing-online.fi), has gained quite a bit of attraction, perhaps partly because one of the founders happens to be NHL hockey player Sean Bergenheim. As we all know, Finns take hockey way too seriously, but in the case of HVO, this turned out to be a real game changer. HVO’s first funding round just recently reached a successful end, backed by a very convincing team of investors including the Chairman of the Board of Frontier Mikko Silventola, the Calgary Flames NHL player Karri Rämö and the sports industry figure Aleksi Valavuori.

Hockey jokes and puns aside, HVO’s business strategy is far from being foolish. Bergenheim came to realise the potential a service like HVO’s could have in the U.S., when fused with their NHL sports network.

“I noticed this gap in the U.S. – it was difficult to find a local operator that offered a good body care service. I discussed with the other founders about how this has to be got into the U.S. market and that maybe we can make use of our existing contacts,” says Bergenheim.

The service is being developed in constant co-operation with operators in the field and the funds will be used for mapping out international growth focusing on the U.S. and on continued development of the Hyvinvointi-Online.fi service.

Hyvinvointi-Online.fi works in Finland through the four-person team at the Aalto Start-up Center in Ruoholahti.