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Help us make Finland better place for startups

We, the Finnish Startup Community, are inspired to make Finland the best place for startups.

However, we know that unfortunately that is not the reality yet. We’ve heard frequent stories on the ridiculous bureaucracy on opening bank accounts, getting your ID’s and waiting multiple hours in front of the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) in cold windstorm. Fortunately these kind of extreme examples are thing in the past but the work is definitely not over.

That’s why we are launching this anonymous board for all startup founders, employees, immigrants or anyone likeminded to share their stories publicly. The feedback can be anything you’ve personally experienced, positive or negative. For example, if you have had to wait months for basic services, we want to hear about it. Likewise, if your work permit was obtained within 24 hours, please share these positive experiences with us as well. The Finnish Startup Community will utilize this as one of their sources on when pushing for changes which ensures that Finland is the best target country in the world for labor migration.

Posts are fully anonymous and do not require any personal information. Finnish Startup Community moderates only to ensure that the feedback is relevant and does not include any personally identifiable information.

You can read more about our work here.

This board was directly influenced by the launch of this great Portugal board

Share your experience

Business Finlandin rahoitusehdot

Hei, Yksi suurimmista kasvun esteistä/hidastajista ovat mielestäni Business Finlandin (EU:n) omat rahoitusehdot, jotka kieltävät rahoituksen käyttämisen mihinkään ”vientiin liittyvään toimintaan, markkinointiin tai myyntiin”. Tämä korostuu erityisesti deep tech startupeissa, joissa harvoin tiedemies ja myyntimies/nainen mahtuvat samaan yksilöön kulttuurissa, jossa perustajan on kuitenkin itse myytävä ideansa sekä rahoittajille että asiakkaille. Tämän olen konkreettisesti kokenut työskenneltyäni parikymmentä vuotta tieteentekijöiden kanssa sekä Nokialla että yliopistolla. Näihin rahoitusehtoihin olisi hyvä saada pikaisesti muutos, joka tarvittaisiin ilmeisesti ihan EU-tasolla. Olisi hienoa, jos tähän pystyttäisiin Suomesta vaikuttamaan, kun meillä on sentään oma teknologiakomissaarikin, kun tunnetusti myynti on nimenomaan suomalaisten heikkous.

5 months ago

Regulatory strategy is an overlooked piece of Finland’s deep-tech startup ecosystem

Finland has built one of the strongest early-stage innovation ecosystems in Europe. Business Finland funding, university spinouts, incubators, and the wider startup community provide strong support for technology development. In practice, this also affects the efficiency of public innovation funding: when regulatory strategy is addressed too late, startups sometimes need to redesign products, repeat studies, or extend timelines after significant R&D funding has already been spent. However, one structural challenge appears repeatedly for startups operating in regulated sectors such as: • healthtech / medtech • foodtech and novel foods • biotech and precision fermentation • AI-enabled medical software Many of these companies receive funding to develop technology but have very limited access to early regulatory strategy support. In practice this creates recurring problems: startups design products without understanding regulatory pathways regulatory requirements are discovered late in development founders underestimate clinical evidence or safety data requirements investors face uncertainty around time-to-market and approval timelines In sectors regulated at the European level (for example MDR, EFSA Novel Food, or emerging AI regulation), regulatory strategy is not a late-stage activity — it directly shapes product design and commercialization. When regulatory considerations appear too late, promising technologies can face major delays, redesigns, or unexpected costs. There are of course consultants, advisors, and experienced professionals who support startups in navigating these challenges. However, access to this expertise is often uneven and usually arrives too late in the product development cycle. Finland could strengthen support for deep-tech startups by integrating regulatory readiness into early innovation funding. For example: • regulatory advisory vouchers linked to Business Finland grants • access to a national “regulatory navigation” service for startups • early interaction opportunities with regulators or notified bodies • inclusion of regulatory strategy modules in accelerator programs The goal would be simple: Ensure that promising technologies do not stall because regulatory strategy was considered too late. In deep-tech sectors, regulatory readiness is not separate from market readiness — it is part of it.

7 months ago

EU citizens blocked. Entirely.

Finland, Helsinki in particular, has been targeting people like me, upper middle class EU citizens, for migration for years. It failed to attract me when I was doihg well, but it succeeded in doing so when I found myself in a crisis, zero capital. I am still me. Educated, talented, ambitious, and fully willing to engage your systems to escape state dependency and create a new life here. New businesses and all that. But I constantly find myself being pushed into the back burner by short sighted policies that define me as a welfare leech, rather than what I really am. The government startup grant is blocked. Access to municipality services is blocked. Even access to Finnish language lessons is locked behind Suomi Fi ID logins that is blocked to me. My only recourse seems to be to use your extremely limited and shrinking 9 euro daily food coupon allowance and public libraries to build up an IP and look abroad for my business. I would advise that you set aside your NIMBY mentality and persecution of the poor EU citizens in favor of inclusive practices that will allow for integration and business building, rather than treating EU citizens as garbage to be discarded.

8 months ago

Easy bank accounts

We’ve had numerous issues with getting a bank account. One bank refused an account because we had an american VC investor in the board of directors - KYC would’ve been too difficult. At one point we were getting income also on crypto (we were not running our own exchange or releasing tokens, or anything complex, just one payment method was crypto) - this was not good for our then main bank so had to change. Overall it is very stressfull knowing that banks can refuse to service your company at any point and getting a new one is not easy at all. It is only easy to get the very first account when you are starting and there are no cap table complexities etc.

8 months ago