A bigger bet on new founders: We tripled our grants in 2025

At the beginning of 2025, we set an ambitious goal: to triple the number of individual grants awarded to aspiring entrepreneurs. One year later, we’re proud to say we achieved it.

In 2025, we received 381 grant applications and supported 53 early-stage founders. We tripled our grant funding to a total of €280,000. helping early-stage founders leap into full-time entrepreneurship and providing critical early support for promising projects.

Lowering the threshold to entrepreneurship

Supporting very early-stage entrepreneurship is at the heart of the Startup Foundation’s mission. Many promising ideas never move forward simply because aspiring founders lack the time, financial security, or resources to explore them properly. Our grants are designed to address this gap.

By funding idea development, researching, and validating business ideas, we aim to lower the barrier for people interested in entrepreneurship to test ideas seriously and pursue entrepreneurship as a career path.

“The Startup Foundation plays a unique role in the Finnish startup ecosystem by supporting very early-stage entrepreneurship and inspiring new founders,” says Startup Foundation CEO Pia-Maria Nickström. 

Diverse ideas, early impact

In 2025, our grantees worked on a wide range of ideas across themes like sales automation, female health, and human performance, among many others. While these projects are still at an early stage, many are already showing strong momentum.

Several entrepreneurial projects and startup founders supported by the Foundation in recent years have gone on to thrive, such as Eerika Savolainen, co-founder of Clair, Mikko Mäntylä, co-founder of Realm, Valtteri Korkiakoski, founder of Solar Care, and Marko Voutilainen, co-founder of Willo. Many have secured follow-on funding from venture capital investors, demonstrating the long-term impact of early, targeted support.

“This year, we’ll continue supporting early-stage founders and projects, helping them grow even further. Finland needs more high-growth entrepreneurship, and by offering tools like our early-stage grants, we create better conditions for new companies to thrive. Our shared goal in the ecosystem is ambitious but clear: to have 100 Finnish startups reach over €100 million in revenue by 2050,” Pia-Maria says.