The largest startup community in Finland.
Fertile seedbed for innovation
Espoo Innovation Garden is the birth place for Finland’s most promising startups, it is the nest of a booming startup scene. We have many success stories going on and new ones appearing continuously as one fundable startup is born every week.
Flagships of the thriving Finnish gaming industry have strong ties to Espoo Innovation Garden. Rovio and their Angry Birds are headquartered in Otaniemi, the heart of Espoo Innovation Garden. Ilkka Paananen, the co-founder of Supercell, the most successful gaming company globally in 2014 is an alumni of Aalto University.
The globally legendary Startup Sauna, formerly a student driven accelerator and nowadays an open co-working space that is also the largest startup community in Finland, is located in Otaniemi. Aalto Entrepreneurship Society, Aaltoes, is behind this student-run non-profit organization.
The significance of entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem has grown rapidly with Slush as its focal point. Slush, established at Startup Sauna, is the largest startup conference in Europe. It gathers together startups and tech talent to meet with top-tier international investors, executives and the media. SLUSH has also expanded internationally to China and Japan.
Google’s startup bootcamp program Google Launchpad was arranged at Espoo Innovation Garden campus in September 2015 – the first time in the Nordics. Espoo Innovation Garden was selected as the location/venue for the Launchpad program because of its vibrant startup ecosystem.
The September 2015 issue of Wired UK listed Europe’s 100 hottest startups. Seven out of the hundred come from the Espoo Innovation Garden ecosystem, especially from Startup Sauna.
Read more:
WIRED's 100 Hottest European Startups 2015
Aalto Entrepreneurship society
Examples of the hottest startups in Espoo Innovation Garden: