The Finnish Startup Community Welcomes the Recommendations of the Kasvuriihi Initiative Report
The Finnish Startup Community has a positive stance on the recommendations presented in the Kasvuriihi initiative report.
The core message of the report is clear: Finland’s business landscape must renew itself. Among the most valuable publicly listed companies in Finland, there are primarily large, long-established corporations, while young technology companies remain largely absent. This highlights the urgent need to foster the growth of new businesses and strengthen Finland’s position in the international technology competition.
“This is a key takeaway from the report presented today by Murto,” says Riikka Pakarinen, CEO of the Finnish Startup Community.
“The wealth of nations is determined by how well they create and attract new, high-value technology companies. If we want Finland to be a successful and prosperous country, we must be the best place to build technology companies. However, we want to emphasize that startups are coming alongside successful established companies, not replacing them,” states Youssef Zad, Chief Economist of the Finnish Startup Community.
New thinking and concrete actions are needed to attract investments and talent. The proposals put forward by Murto’s working group contain such measures. We are particularly pleased with the 17 specific actions focused on growth companies.
“We would like to highlight the additional tax incentives for supporting R&D activities, the shift in the government’s investment focus towards unlisted growth companies, and the extension of the period for deducting company losses. It is also crucial that the proposal seeks to address the challenge of securing more domestic investment capital for scalable companies in the future,” says Pakarinen.
The startup community has not advocated for massive tax cuts in this challenging public finance situation.
“We fully understand the cautious stance on tax reductions. Our approach is to realistically target aggressive incentives at domestic technology and growth companies and R&D activities based in Finland, which will contribute to business renewal. This has a significant leverage effect,” states Pakarinen.
Europe and Finland have clearly lagged behind the United States in terms of economic growth. The difference between the continents can be attributed to the diverging growth of their technology sectors. In the U.S., global technology giants and a large number of highly successful tech companies have emerged, creating many new high-productivity jobs.
“The scale difference between the continents is so vast that we need a clear shift in policy measures, risk-taking willingness, and ambition levels. We believe that the policy measures proposed by Risto Murto’s working group are feasible. Now, concrete actions are needed in the government’s mid-term budget session to ensure that this excellent report does not remain just a proposal,” concludes Pakarinen.
Further information:
Riikka Pakarinen
CEO
Finnish Startup Community
Youssef Zad
Chief Economist
Finnish Startup Community