Fresh Finnish quartet is making an impact, figures Forbes

Karoliina Kauhanen was recognised in the social impact category for her involvement in Commu, a platform enabling users to request volunteer assistance and sign up for volunteer work. Since its founding in 2022, the platform has had over 60 000 people sign up in Finland, Norway and Germany.

“Commu is a low-threshold place to ask for and give help, like a digital doorbell,” she summarised in an interview with Yrittäjät in 2022.

In the science and healthcare category, the business magazine took note of Valtteri Korkiakoski, head of product and technology at Sweden’s Mindler. Korkiakoski joined the Swedish online mental health platform two years ago, when it beefed up its technological capabilities with the acquisition of his medical technology startup, Medified Solutions.

Medified had developed artificial intelligence-powered software to collect clinical data to measure how patients were progressing and to optimise their treatment.

Anttoni Aniebonam and Frans Lehmusvaara similarly secured a spot in the science and healthcare category of the list for their work at Veri, a Helsinki-based startup combining continuous glucose monitors with an app providing diet and exercise recommendations. The app is marketed at non-diabetics with the desire to improve their metabolic health, currently boasting a user base of roughly 40 000.

Also investors have signalled their confidence in the startup, contributing over 15 million US dollars to the business idea.

Aniebonam in 2021 revealed to Aalto University that his interest in health and wellbeing was kindled by an injury that forced him to abandon his dream of becoming a professional footballer and re-define his very identity.

“I couldn’t comprehend my own body any more, but I knew the mind was the key to getting back on track. I needed to have some big problem I could spend most of my waking hours solving,” he recounted, detailing the moment that set him on a path to entrepreneurship.

The two previous editions of the annual list featured five and four Finns, respectively.