Wired UK – September 2019

BY CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER 60.1699° N, 24.9384° E

HELSINKI

Varjo

When we checked in on

virtual reality display

startup Varjo in 2018,

it had raised €13m of

investment in two years.

Twelve months on,

this startup is growing

fast – and a funding

round led by London-

based investment firm

Atomico in October

2018 brought total

investment to €38m.

The company ups the

resolution on off-the-

shelf VR displays by

a factor of up to 20,

making it comparable

to that of human

vision. varjo.com

Wolt

The Nordic and Baltics

competitor to Deliveroo

and Uber Eats was

backed in its early

days by Supercell CEO

Ilkka Paananen and

Skype founder Niklas

Zennström. In total,

it’s been financed to

the tune of €14.1m,

allowing it to carve out

a niche in 50 cities,

promising food delivery

to customers in less

than 30 minutes.

Some of the funding

is being used on a trial

of automated delivery

robots in Tallinn,

Estonia. wolt.com

The Finnish capital is home to startup

conference Slush, and Junction – Europe’s biggest

hackathon – as part of a dynamic scene focused on

gaming and mobile. The home of Nokia and Clash

of Clans developers Supercell is awash in foreign

cash: more than half of the €479 million invested

in Finnish startups in 2018 came from outside

sources – but local investors are also staking a

claim, investing 35 per cent more in 2018 than 2017.

HELSINKI

Tespack Meeshkan

Former Argentine

special forces soldier

Mario Aguilera would

spend weeks living

independently while on

training deployment

in South America. One

barrier preventing him

staying out longer was

running out of battery

power. So together

with renewable energy

researcher Caritta Seppa,

he set up Tespack, which

makes a solar-powered

backpack that’s currently

used by astronauts in the

Austrian Space Forum.

Such high-profile users

have attracted €2.2

million in investment.

tespack.com

CEO Mike Solomon

started Meeshkan as a

side project in late 2017

while working a full-

time job at a company

developing a music app.

His ChatOps testing app

for machine-learning

developers is now one

of Helsinki’s hottest,

winning the pitch

competition at Slush

2018 – right around the

time Meeshkan launched

a second product,

Unmock.io. “The goal of

Unmock is to pass the

Turing test for APIs,”

explains Solomon. The

company recently closed

a €1.8 million funding

round. meeshkan.com

70 , 000 m^2

The eventual size of the new Maria 01 startup campus under

construction in Helsinki, making it one of Europe’s largest.

The current Maria 01, in a disused hospital, is a mere 20,000m^2

WHERE TO VISIT

Finnish Sauna Society,

Vaskiniementie 10,

00200

The Finns love saunas,

and the Sauna Society

• dating back to 1937 –
  is one of the best.
  sauna.fi

09-19-SUstartup01.indd 80 24/07/2019 14:06