The growth within the FSC Finnish startup community has been strong. There are dozens of membership applications in the queue and the number of member companies has grown to 116. When the community was founded in 2020, there were over 100 members, among which Supercell, Metacore, RELEX, Yousician, Supermetrics, Wolt, Aiven, Smartly, Blok, Unity, Sulapac, YES.VC, Inventure, Maki Ventures and Lifeline Ventures.
Net sales growth was as high as 62 percent compared to 2020.
During the first year of operation the number of FSC member companies went from 100 to 116.
The social weight of FSC's member companies is growing by leaps and bounds. The revenue of the member companies was as high as EUR 3.5 billion in 2021, according to preliminary data. The growth from 2020 was as high as 62 per cent. The importance of startups to the Finnish economy is huge because of the fact that the majority of the revenue of our member companies comes from exports, according to Youssef Zad, economist at FSC.
Net sales data is based on figures reported by member companies. The growth figures reported in the release are conservative, because the missing findings have been replaced by 2020 data. Some of the data was estimated on the basis of the responses to the Startup Barometer.
The growth of companies in the startup community is dizzying right now. Youssef estimates that the 10 billion target for net sales and exports of Finnish startups by 2030 is fully achievable. I think the Finnish startup ecosystem will become at least as important as the Finnish forest and metal industries. The ecosystem is likely to become the most important cornerstone of Finland's economic growth over the long term. The growth of companies in the startup community is fast: over 60%. Growth is significant for the Finnish economy since some of the companies have already scaled up with success. Some of the new startups are brought to Finland by successful startup companies that bring in new capital.
The startup ecosystem is reaching a point where more mature startups can support the growth of younger companies by creating and attracting new skills to the Finnish labour market, according to Zad.