Driven by large investment rounds of HMD, Wolt, ICEYE and Varjo investments in Finnish startups grew 88% last year from a year ago, with the firms raising higher ever amount of 951 million euros ($1.15 billion), Finnish Venture Capital Association said.
“Due to the successful cooperation between entrepreneurs and investors, Finland is one of the fastest-growing European startup centres. Expanding international networks will continue to be important so that more and more Finnish companies receive help to develop into a globally significant growth company, ” Janne Holmia from Verdane said in a statement.
The outlook for 2021 is bright as the data for 2020 includes Wolt’s 100 million euros round last year, but not its $530 million investment round early in 2021.
The data for 2020 showed that the largest group of investors are venture capital investors, who in 2020 invested a total of 495 million euros in Finnish startups, growing more than 200 million euros from a year ago.
Business angels invested 36 million, and through crowdfunding, the firms raised around 50 million. Other investors, such as larger companies and pension companies, invested a total of 370 million euros in Finnish startups.
The largest single investment was a 195 million euros round of funding raised by telephone maker HMD, most of which was raised from overseas Google and Qualcomm.