This year Helsinki lost its spot as the No 1 town for venture funding in Finland as its neighbouring Espoo bypassed it thanks to major funding rounds of HMD, Iceeye and IQM, reveals the annual State of European Tech report of Atomico.
Venture funding in Espoo will grow roughly 8-fold to $508 million this year from just $59 million last year, while funding in Helsinki will grow to $453 million from $346 million, the report said.
Amount of funding rounds in Helsinki is set to fall to just 49 this year, to the lowest level in 5 years, putting it to No 11 on the number of funding rounds, just ahead of Copenhagen and Tallinn, the report showed. Espoo did not make it to the Top 20 list by a number of deals.
The numbers are annualised based on the data up to September 2020. Hence major funding rounds of Nokia phones-maker HMD Global, which unveiled in August funding of $230 million, are having an even bigger impact on the data.
Other large Espoo-based funding rounds of 202 include $87 million raised by space startup Iceeye in September, 39 million euros raised by IQM Quantum Computers in November and MariaDB’s $25 million round in July.
Among other funding rounds from Espoo Quuppa raised 20 million euros, Klevu 12 million euros, Sensible 4 6.3 million euros, Eniferbio 1 million euros and Sofi Filtration 3 million.
Espoo has been home of Finnish technology giant Nokia since it moved to Nokia-house in Keilalahti in 1997, and it’s also home of the country’s main technology university.
Atomico’s list is topped with usual suspects with companies in London, Paris, Stockholm and Berlin raising most funding. Berlin fell to No 4 from No 2 last year.
“Hubs such as London, Berlin, Paris and Stockholm have the densest network of startups, the deepest pools of experienced talent and many of the most sophisticated investors. Little wonder then they continue to power ahead, just as other more nascent hubs takes steps forward too,” the report said.
NOTE: Updates with further funding rounds of Espoo-based startups.
