The Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland
Award Competition 2022
See the final results!
“This competition has been a good tool for us to analyze and develop our own startup activities.”
Erik Kolehmainen, VP, Corporate Venturing at Metsä Spring, the winning team in 2021 and 2022.
“We believe in open innovation. Continuous collaboration with startups has really proven its power for us. This competition has been a great way to make all those successes and learnings visible both internally and externally.”
Kaisa Suutari, Director of Innovation Services at Stora Enso, winning team in previous years.
“The competition is a great way to meet the community and promote opportunities for start-ups and corporations, not only a ceremony with award certificates and flowers.”
Mikko Mattila, Senior Co-Innovation Manager at KONE, runner-up team in 2021.
“The competition provides us an outsider’s view to challenge our startup activities, and a forum to discuss startup-collaboration with like-minded peer companies.”
Ville Hoppu, Partnership Manager at Konecranes, outstanding contributor in the 2021 round.
Step 1: Sign up
Let us know your corporation has active interest, plans or activities together with startups. Join the competition!
We will send you the details of participation. These include a form with which to share the story of your awesome startup-related activity with us. You will also get an opportunity to get creative with the Toolbox.
Joining the Competition: we ask you to share the story of your successes and ambition with us. You also get access to and a chance to contribute to the mutually useful Toolbox.
Step 2: Submit your contribution
In the 2023 Competition, we are looking for evidence significant corporate-startup cooperation. Also, your contribution to co-creating the Toolbox will count.
More details about the 2023 competition criteria will be published later.
If you have been active with startups, show us!
Step 3: Evaluation and winners
The jury will evaluate the participating companies’ submissions and interview the chosen finalists.
Final rankings may depend on the number competitors, the number of qualifying finalists in each category, and the jury’s evaluation.
Featured Events and Topics
Startup Friendliness
The annual Most Startup Friendly Company in Finland Award aims to create broader recognition for the exceptional achievements of large corporations in Finland, regarding their collaborations with startup companies and thereby improving competitiveness and innovation.
There is great potential in evolving and fair cooperation models between large corporations and startups.
Competition
During 2018-2021, we have evaluated the competitors (large corporations) based on many metrics. For example Ecosystem Collaboration, Startup Collaboration, Internal Startup Actions, Sustainability and Pandemic Response.
In 2022, we opened a new chapter by dividing the competition into two categories: one for global/international corporations and one for more locally focused large companies. The aim was to enable participation by smaller (though still large) companies, than in the previous years of the competition.
This new kind of evaluation in the 2022 competition round focused on near term qualitiative and quantitative improvements in startup cooperation by the company, instead of e.g. sheer number of deals. This gives an opportunity for a more diverse group of participants to join the Most Startup Friendly Company competition.
The competition is continually evolving. Stay tuned for the round in 2023!
Toolbox
The Corporate-Startup Toolbox is a separate (but connected) project that runs parallel to the Most Startup Friendly competition. The project was born from an open brainstorm cooperation workshop held in March 2022 with some of the competition participants.
The Toolbox is a collection of frameworks, methodologies and knowledge that help make corporate-startup cooperation smoother.
