There’s some light at the end of the tunnel for entrepreneurs in Finland. Last year domestic and foreign private equity firms invested more than 280 million euros in start-up businesses – more than double their injections in 2012.
Domestic and foreign investors are demonstrating their growing faith in the Finnish start-up sector by pouring more money into fledgling enterprises looking for growth or new markets.
Foreign investors in particular appear to have finally found Finland on the map of global investment opportunities. Back in 2012 Finnish enterprises attracted some 68 million euros in foreign private equity – last year that amount more than doubled to reach 159 million euros.
“The funding round for the gaming company Supercell accounted for most of that growth. But otherwise foreign private investment grew by five percent,” noted Marika af Enehjelm, chief executive of the Finnish Venture Capital Association FCVA.
af Enehjelm added that the growing season isn’t necessarily over either. In Sweden growth enterprises benefited from a doubling of equity injections in terms of the country’s gross domestic product, or national output.
The Finnish Business Angels Network (Fiban) also expects the growth in equity investment to continue. Fiban board chair Riku Asikainen noted that in addition to the growth of a new class of young entrepreneurs, their business ideas are also more appealing.
“Now we have 26-year old graduates thinking of setting up a start-up. It wasn’t like this before,” he added.
Business angels typically invest during a business’s start-up phase. Angels try to help their protégés to grow so they can make a return on their investments.
Private equity firms also point out that growth enterprises are the key to generating new jobs in Finland. Companies that have obtained this kind of funding have created five percentage points more jobs than others.
Read the whole story: http://yle.fi/uutiset/investors_double_stakes_in_growth_businesses/7106492
Source: YLE