Bluugo chosen to Business Finland’s Young Innovative Companies funding programme!

Bluugo has been chosen to Business Finland’s YIC funding programme

Today, we have some great news to share: Bluugo has been chosen to be a part of Business Finland’s Young Innovative Companies funding programme!

“With the Young Innovative Company funding Business Finland intends to accelerate the global growth of the most ambitious, rapidly growing startups in Finland. The funding can be used for the comprehensive development of business activities. For example, it can be used to strengthen a team, to develop a business model and growth strategy, and to open up new markets.”

-Business Finland

Expanding our business to international markets has been an integral part of Bluugo’s strategy since the founding of our company in 2014. We can proudly state to have succeeded in this endeavor!

Our results speak for themselves – Bluugo’s Tracking Cloud™ solutions are currently used in more than 25 countries in Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia, including China and the Russian federation. About 40% of our revenue currently comes from outside of Finland. We have been profitable since Day 1 with an average annual revenue growth of +54%.

The Young Innovative Companies funding from Business Finland will help us to boost our international growth even further and swiftly conquer new markets.

Three stages of Funding

The Young Innovative Companies funding consists of three phases, which amount to a maximum total of €1,25 million.

Business Finland sets goals for the company in its funding decision, which, if realized, enable the company to move on to the next phase of funding. These goals typically relate to factors such as the development of turnover, the ability to get funding from other sources and expanding into new markets.

An exclusive program only for the most ambitious companies

Being selected to the YIC programme is a big deal for Bluugo as only a handful of the most ambitious and fast-growing companies are chosen each year. The funding can only be granted to companies that meet the following preconditions:

Age and size

- Business Finland must make the funding decision before the company reaches five years of age. The funding will cease, at the latest, when the company has been registered for eight years. (The company's registration date is of crucial importance.)

- The company must be classified as small and registered in Finland. The number of personnel in a small company is less than 50, and either its maximum annual turnover is €10 million, or its maximum final balance is €10 million.

Ownership and background

- The company must be independent and administer its own IP rights.

- The company should not continue the operations of another company.

- The company should not be formed through a merger. (Exception: The merged companies are less than 5 years old.)

- The company should not have distributed profits.

Strong efforts in innovation activities

- At the application phase, the company must provide a confirmation from an auditor that it has invested at least 10% of all its business costs in research and development, during at least one of the previous three years.

Success Stories since 2008

Since 2008, a total of 423 Finnish startups have been selected to the program. So far, 122 of these companies have reached the demanding goals and completed all three funding phases. This elite group of companies includes many big international success stories such as Supercell, Seriously, Framery and iLOQ.

We intend to be the next one.