Helsinki

Funding into Helsinki startups has grown nearly tenfold over the past five years, reaching $1.1B in 2025. With $246M raised in the first 5 months of 2026, the full year is on track to land at $589M, a -46% change versus 2025. The chart below shows annual funding totals; the latest year is annualised from observed-to-date data and represents the renderer's projection, not a closed quarter.

Yearly totals mask the quarter-by-quarter rhythm. The chart below shows Helsinki startups funding raised in each of the last 21 complete quarters through Q1 2026. All bars are actual closed-quarter sums, no projections, no in-progress quarters.

Helsinki's share of Finnish venture capital tracks how much of Finland's startup capital lands in this market. In 2016, Helsinki startups accounted for 61.4% of Finnish VC funding; by 2026 the share had reached 90.7%. The chart below splits each year's total Finnish VC funding into Helsinki on the bottom and the rest of the market on top.

How capital deployed into Helsinki startups is split across round sizes. In the trailing four quarters, 54% of capital landed in scaleup ($100M+) rounds, 26% in breakout ($15–100M), and 21% across startups (under $15M). Each panel below stacks the canonical sub-bands across Q1 2022 → Q1 2026.

The most active investors in Helsinki startups ranked by the number of disclosed rounds they've participated in. EIC Fund leads with 31 rounds, followed by Antler at 21. The table shows the top ten with their firm type, in-scope round count, total portfolio size, and headquarters.

Two views of leadership in Helsinki startups: the most-funded companies all-time on the left, and the hottest companies right now by Dealroom Signal on the right. Total-funding figures include all capital sources tracked by Dealroom (VC plus grants, project finance, and other instruments). Signal is Dealroom's live growth ranking, these are the firms with the strongest recent momentum across team, timing, growth, and completeness.

Over the last 12 months (through Jun 2026), the largest VC rounds in Helsinki startups reveal where capital is consolidating. The table below lists the 12 biggest disclosed rounds by amount, with date, company, round type, and lead investors. Funding events without a public amount are excluded; acquisitions sit in the Unicorns & Exits section.

Which industries pull in the most venture capital across Helsinki startups, and where does the Helsinki punch above its weight versus the rest of the world? Use the toggle to switch between absolute VC funding and each industry's over/under-index, and to change the time window. Over the last 12 months (to end of Q1 2026), Semiconductors leads at $324M, and the Helsinki over-indexes in Space, Semiconductors, Food, and under-indexes most in Marketing, Fintech, AI relative to the rest of the world. Industries are tracked through Dealroom's industry tags, which overlap, a company spanning, say, AI and fintech is counted in both, so these show where capital concentrates, not a mutually exclusive split of the total.

Helsinki startups have minted 9 unicorns to date. Dealroom defines a unicorn as a company that has reached a $1B+ valuation or exit (verified and manually reviewed; other lists use different criteria, this is ours). Of those, 2 are decacorns at a $10B+ valuation: ICEYE and Supercell. The ecosystem also counts 18 thoroughbreds: companies generating $100M+ in revenue (a separate lens from unicorns, with some overlap). The chart below shows the cumulative count climbing each year, with the line tracking new unicorns minted in that year, peaking at 2 in 2021. On exits, the sector has produced 171 tracked acquisitions since 2010 representing $23.1B in disclosed value. Notable acquisitions in the data include Supercell ($8.6B, 2016), followed by Wolt ($8.1B, 2021), Supercell ($1.5B, 2013).

Entrepreneurship is a power law. Of every Helsinki startup founded, only a fraction attract venture capital, and far fewer climb each successive funding level. This funnel traces VC-backed Helsinki startups from first cheque through to the rarest valuation outcomes. Mouth figures are annual means (2010–2024); pool stages count VC-backed companies founded since 1990 by total funding.