Background information

Business Finland Venture Capital Ltd (Business Finland) is a state-owned venture capital fund investment company that provides innovation funding and promotes trade, travel and investments.

Business Finland has 16 offices in Finland and 40 global offices. Business Finland was established in 2018 as a result of a merger of two organisations: Finpro, a state-owned organisation that focused on internationalisation, investments and tourism and Tekes, a state-owned innovation-funding organisation.

Business Finland provides a wide range of services for Finnish companies. The main services consist of internationalisation and innovation - funding, advisory services connected to internationalisation and services for the creation and development of ecosystems. Business Finland also participate in and operate programmes, such as the Government's Talent Boost programme.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment governs the activities of Business Finland through the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation.

Content of measure

Some of the funding opportunities are open even for research organisations, municipalities and cities.

A significant part of the services are provided through programmes that Business Finland has established in areas with significant potential for growth. According to Business Finland's website, the purpose of the programme activities is to 'prompt businesses to benefit from market transitions and to increase understanding of themes affecting the future of business'. In the programmes, Business Finland provides companies with advice on networking, finding new markets and customers, help with joint offerings and connections with international investors.

Two examples of the programmes are:

1. Digital Trust Finland (2019-2023): A programme that provides innovation funding, help with internationalisation and support for strengthening ecosystems for Finnish companies operating in critical communications and cybersecurity. Companies using cybersecurity solutions can apply for funding. Smart Finance actors (e.g. banks, insurance companies, payment technology companies or financial management companies) and companies that are also part of the MyData network that focuses on personal data sharing issues can be part of the programme. The budget is €100 million.

2. Smart Energy Finland (2018-2022): A programme that helps Finnish companies, research organisations, municipalities and cities to benefit from the business opportunities that arise from the changes in the transport sector. The programme seeks also to attract international actors of the transport sector to Finland. The budget is approximately €50 million.

Use of measure

According to Business Finland's impact report (2021), Business Finland awarded funding for €707 million in 2021. Most of this funding (€561 million) was awarded for companies, the rest for research (€146 million). In 2020, due to the COVID 19-pandemic, the awarded funding was over €1,734 million of which €1,612 for companies and €123 million for research.

In 2018, Business Finland granted a total of 458 energy aid projects approximately €23 million and in 2019 684 Energy aid projects with a total of around €30 million.

In 2023, the total amount of funding allocated was €725.9 million of which 62.2% were grants, 20.2% were loans and 17.5% were research funding. In total 4,435 projects were funded. Over half of the funding was awarded to large companies (53%). In 2024, until October, €414.6 million has been awarded, of which 24.6% to research funding, 30% to loans, and 45.4% to grants (Business Finland, 2024b).

According to Business Finland's results and impact analysis from 2023, their customer companies' RDI investments increased by 16.4% in 2021-2022. The customer companies receiving innovation funding in 2020 have increased their export from around €22.5 billion in 2020 to above €31 billion in 2023 (Business Finland, 2023).

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Employees in standard employment	Applies to all businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: Unknown

Involvement

Unknown

Views and reactions

Unknown

Sources

• 01 January 2018: Business Finland - About Us (www.businessfinland.fi)
• 01 January 2018: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Labour (2020) Business Finland Venture Capital Ltd is an investor in early stage capital investment funds (tem.fi)
• 01 January 2018: Confederation of Finnish Industries (2018) Team Finland ja Business Finland - EK:n yrityskyselyn tulokset (ek.fi)
• 01 January 2018: Mydata (mydata.org)
• 28 February 2019: Business Finland (2018) Annual report (Tilinpäätös) (www.businessfinland.fi)
• 01 May 2019: Business Finland (2019) Innovaatioista kilpailukykyä ja kestävää kasvua - Business Finlandin tulokset ja vaikutukset (www.businessfinland.fi)
• 26 March 2020: TEM (2020) Government increases business financing due to COVID-19 and provides EUR 1 billion in direct subsidies (tem.fi)
• 01 June 2020: TEM (2020) Legislative proposal regarding support for business costs to Parliament this week (tem.fi)
• 20 December 2021: Business Finland (2022) Energiatuki (www.businessfinland.fi)
• 21 December 2021: Business Finland (2021), Energia investointitukien ensimmäinen haku (www.businessfinland.fi)
• 08 January 2024: Business Finland (2024a) 'Changes to many of our funding services' (www.businessfinland.fi)
• 04 October 2024: Business Finland (2024b) 'Database over Funding awarded per year' (tietopankki.businessfinland.fi)
• 04 October 2024: Business Finland (2023) 'Results and impact 2023' (www.businessfinland.fi)