Finland’s next wave of innovation draws investor focus
Finland is entering 2026 with renewed momentum in its startup ecosystem, powered by a long-standing engineering culture, research-driven universities, and close cooperation between industry and the public sector. The country’s innovation engine is increasingly concentrated around Helsinki and Espoo, where new companies are emerging across deeptech, clean energy, health, artificial intelligence, and mobility.
In recent years, Finland has strengthened its position as a Northern European hub for advanced technologies, supported by active public institutions and a growing pool of international investors. Several of the newest companies are targeting areas where Europe is pushing for strategic capacity, including quantum technologies, autonomous systems, and healthtech. Below are 10 startups—founded from 2023 onward—that illustrate the breadth of the country’s current innovation cycle.
Deeptech optics and displays: Distance Technologies
Founded in 2024 in Helsinki, Distance Technologies is developing AI-driven optics and computer vision that turn transparent surfaces into 3D lightfield displays. The company’s platform enables pixel-level depth control, allowing digital content to appear at varying distances and blend with the real world without glasses or headsets.
The technology is positioned for demanding environments such as defence, aerospace, and automotive, where it can serve as a visual front-end for sensor fusion, combining inputs like lidar, radar, and thermal data into a coherent 3D layer. In vehicles, it enables next-generation lightfield head-up displays intended to improve situational awareness and safety. The company has raised €11.8 million to advance the platform and expand industrial deployments.
Electric mobility platform: Donut Lab
Helsinki-based Donut Lab, launched in 2024, is building an integrated EV technology stack that combines motors, batteries, control hardware, and software into a unified system. The company is best known for its all-solid-state battery technology aimed at real-world deployment, with claims of high energy density, fast charging, long cycle life, and lower cost compared with conventional lithium-ion batteries.
In parallel, Donut Lab develops in-wheel electric motors designed to simplify vehicle architectures while delivering higher torque with reduced weight. Its technologies are already in production across multiple programs, including electric motorcycles, lightweight EV platforms, and industrial uses such as robotic load control systems. The company has raised €40 million to scale its platform and support partners building next-generation electric mobility products.
Clinical AI to reduce admin burden: Gosta Labs
Founded in 2023 and based in Espoo, Gosta Labs is building what it describes as a trusted AI operating system for healthcare professionals. The platform automates administrative work such as clinical note generation, structuring patient data, and surfacing relevant insights in real time, aiming to free clinicians to spend more time on patient care.
The company says the system is already used across tens of thousands of clinical appointments and is designed for real-world clinical environments, combining medical expertise with AI developed on secure European infrastructure. Founded by entrepreneurs previously involved with Kaiku Health, Gosta Labs has raised €8.7 million to develop its models, expand deployments across public and private providers, and support regulatory-compliant scaling across Europe.
Mission-critical autonomy: NestAI
Helsinki-founded in 2024, NestAI is developing autonomous systems and command capabilities for mission-critical settings where reliability, safety, and accountability are essential. Operating at the intersection of software, hardware, and AI, the company is building open and interoperable architectures intended to avoid vendor lock-in as systems evolve.
With close to 100 engineers and scientists, NestAI is targeting deployments across defence, infrastructure, and security, combining sensing, autonomy, and command tools into operational platforms. The company has raised €100 million to scale and expand deployments across Europe.
Food deeptech: Perfat Technologies
Founded in 2023 in Helsinki, Perfat Technologies is a food deeptech company developing lipid-based technology that makes healthy liquid vegetable oils behave like semi-solid or solid fats. Rather than chemical modification, the approach relies on material physics to provide structure and functionality for food processing while reducing saturated fat content.
The company is positioning the technology as a way for producers to replace conventional fats such as butter and palm oil without compromising taste or performance across applications. Perfat has raised €3.5 million to scale its lipid platform, complete industrial validation, and expand partnerships in food manufacturing.
Near-term quantum software: QMill
Espoo-based QMill, founded in 2024, is developing quantum computing software aimed at delivering practical value in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era. The company’s focus is to make quantum computing useful before fully fault-tolerant machines arrive, by building algorithms and tools that run on near-term hardware.
Its first product is an AI-powered quantum circuit compression tool designed to help users compress, run, and compare circuits more efficiently across different platforms. QMill has raised €5 million to advance its software, expand research partnerships, and support early commercial deployments.
Quantum hardware at scale: SemiQon
Headquartered in Espoo and founded in 2023, SemiQon is developing silicon-based quantum processors intended to support large-scale quantum computing. The company is working on cryogenic-ready quantum hardware positioned as more scalable, affordable, and energy-efficient than some existing approaches, with an eye on a future “million-qubit” era.
SemiQon’s portfolio includes silicon quantum dot devices, cryogenic CMOS technologies, and next-generation quantum integrated circuits for quantum computing and space applications. The company has secured €19.4 million in funding to advance its roadmap and accelerate development of scalable quantum processing units.
All-weather autonomy: Sensible 4
Espoo-based Sensible 4 is developing autonomous driving software designed to perform in harsh weather and low-visibility conditions—an area where conventional autonomy stacks can struggle. Its DAWN™ platform targets Level 4 autonomy for industrial and commercial vehicles on closed sites and public roads, spanning use cases from industrial trucking to defence mobility.
While originally founded in 2017, the company was reorganised in 2025 and is included here due to its renewed structure and scaling plans. Sensible 4 combines AI-driven perception and decision-making with modular retrofit hardware to speed deployment across existing fleets. The company has raised €14.5 million to expand deployments globally.
Precision oncology: Solid IO
Founded in 2025 in Helsinki, Solid IO is developing patient-specific tumour-on-chip technology aimed at improving precision in cancer care. The platform is designed to replicate an individual patient’s tumour environment in a controlled setting, potentially enabling clinicians and researchers to evaluate responses to therapies more directly than population-level averages allow.
Why this cohort matters
Together, these startups underscore how Finland’s ecosystem is leaning into strategically important domains—energy storage, autonomous systems, and quantum—while also applying AI to areas where productivity and outcomes are under pressure, such as healthcare. The funding figures also highlight the breadth of investor appetite, from early-stage deeptech rounds to nine-figure raises for mission-critical autonomy.
As 2026 unfolds, the key test will be execution: converting research strength into deployments, scaling across regulated markets, and building durable partnerships with industry. For now, the pipeline suggests that Helsinki and Espoo will remain central nodes in Europe’s next wave of innovation.
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