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Good practice Imported

VTT LaunchPad — Turning Finnish Public R&D into Deep-Tech Spin-offs

Finland · Espoo · See the Finland profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 76% 57/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

VTT, Finland's state research institute (est. 1942), runs the VTT LaunchPad deep-tech incubator from Espoo; in 2024 its spin-offs raised €207m — 15% of all Finnish startup equity funding — though the top five companies took roughly 70% of that total.

>60
Total spin-offs from VTT's work
~900
Employees across spin-off portfolio (2023) (2023)
207 EUR million
Equity funding raised by VTT spin-offs (2024) (2024)
15 %
Share of all Finnish startup capital invested (2024) (2024)
9 of 16
2024 spin-offs originating directly from VTT LaunchPad (2024)
55.8 EUR million
TactoTek funding round (2024)
41.6 EUR million
Onego Bio funding round (2024)
17.5 EUR million
Paptic funding round (2024)
16 EUR million
Solar Foods funding round (2024)
15 EUR million
Enifer funding round (2024)
8.1 EUR million
IPR licence income (2024) (2024)
~2,000
Patents held
457
Patent families
~63 EUR million
R&D reinvested by spin-outs (2024) (2024)
VTT LaunchPad — Turning Finnish Public R&D into Deep-Tech Spin-offs

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Period
2019–present
Region (NUTS)
FI1B
Keywords
applied research, deep-tech incubation, technology licensing

Context

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, founded in 1942 and based in Espoo's Otaniemi science district, is Finland's state-owned applied-research institute. Since the 2019 launch of VTT LaunchPad, a dedicated deep-tech incubator, it has turned internal IP into venture-backed spin-off companies.

Results

Over 60 spin-offs have emerged from VTT's work in total, growing from fewer than ten employees in 2013 to nearly 900 across the portfolio by 2023. 2024 was a record year: 16 VTT-originating spin-offs raised €207m in equity funding, equal to 15% of all capital invested in Finnish startups that year — independently reported by the City of Espoo's economic-development agency alongside VTT's own figures. Nine of the sixteen came directly out of VTT LaunchPad. The largest rounds went to TactoTek (€55.8m), Onego Bio (€41.6m), Paptic (€17.5m), Solar Foods (€16m) and Enifer (€15m) — the top five deals made up around 70% of the year's total. VTT also recorded a record €8.1m in IPR licence income and in-kind spin-off investment in 2024, holds close to 2,000 patents across 457 patent families, and its spin-outs reinvested around €63m in R&D that year. Financial Times listed VTT LaunchPad among leading European startup hubs in 2024 and 2026.

Conclusions

Funding is concentrated in a handful of standout companies rather than broadly distributed, and no independent data on job-placement or founder-diversity outcomes across the wider spin-off portfolio was found.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
VTT research staff generating patentable IP, Dedicated VTT LaunchPad incubator team

Conditions for success

  • Large in-house patent portfolio (~2,000 patents, 457 families) as a pipeline for spin-outs
  • Dedicated incubator structure separate from core research
  • Sustained public research funding underpinning the IP base

Common failure modes

  • Funding concentrated in a handful of standout companies rather than broadly distributed across the portfolio
  • No independent data found on job-placement or founder-diversity outcomes across the wider spin-off portfolio

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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