Europe Needs Us to Exist

Europe builds half of the world’s tech startups and funds only 17% of them. The money comes from outside, smoking the startup out of the EU over time: team, office, supplies. This problem is entirely structural, in Finland the ecosystem for building lasting products does not exist. Most accelerators focus on 2-3 months of intense work at most. In turn, this approach fuels good technical ideas for an exit out of Europe. We learned to launch satellites into orbit but they don’t stay there. Ignite fixes this.

Ignite is neither a programme nor a network, it is a well-oiled machine with its base of operations in Otaniemi, Espoo — the beating heart of the Aalto University academic community and the local startup ecosystem since 2009. We anchor entrepreneurial potential and economic growth from all over the world in Finland.

Our admission process selects the obsessed rebel builders, polymaths in deep rabbit holes and who know their craft through and through. They are the fuel for the future of the EU. We explicitly select teams of first-time founders: ragged, self-built, creator at the soul. Paints a picture, doesn’t it?

Once inside, every team has a single purpose: turn the obsession into a product that can be a real business. Instead of putting them in a network and hoping for the best, we build the right environment for their project to grow: a place to live, a €1500 equity-free grant and individual support. The goal is going beyond demo day: building a company that still stands in 5 years — still in Finland, still building.

By 2030 Ignite will be the engine that supports local startups all-year round, the #1 in the world. Europe needs this to exist. We are building it here, now.