Business Finland Young Innovative Company Funding

Status: historical reference

Business Finland’s official Young Innovative Companies (YIC) page says that the call has ended. The last published application deadline was 10 October 2025 at 23:59, and the page says the closure is in place until further notice because of the funding authorisation situation. After that closing time, a company could no longer open a new YIC application or submit an incomplete application that had already been created in the online service. The closure did not affect companies that were already in their first or a later YIC funding period.

This page therefore records the last documented YIC cycle; it is not an invitation to apply now. Business Finland has not announced a replacement YIC application round on the official program page reviewed for this update. Do not treat the retained deadline as a future date, and do not send a new application through the old route unless Business Finland publishes a new call and new instructions. The historicalReference = true front-matter flag marks that distinction for the site.

The official source remains useful because it documents the program’s design, its selection bar, the three-phase funding structure, and the materials that applicants were expected to prepare. It also explains what existing YIC-funded companies must do while they continue their approved phases. Those details are preserved below, with the closed status made explicit.

At a glance

What YIC funding was designed to support

YIC funding was aimed at startups that had moved beyond a promising idea and had evidence that their business could scale internationally. Business Finland described the program as support for growing international business, strengthening the team, developing the business model and growth strategy, and entering new markets. The target was not ordinary early-stage company formation or a general operating subsidy.

The official page describes a typical selected company as already having significant turnover and a record of growing international business. It gives averages as context rather than as automatic thresholds: a typical selected company was about four years old, had an average of 13 employees, more than EUR 420,000 in turnover from scalable business operations, and EUR 1 million in equity investment. Those figures should not be read as a promise that an applicant meeting them would be funded. They show the maturity and evidence level Business Finland associated with the program.

The funding was divided into three phases. For the published model, the first phase was a EUR 250,000 grant, the second phase was another EUR 250,000 grant, and the third phase was a EUR 500,000 grant. Each phase was evaluated before the company could proceed. The official page separately notes that companies selected before 1 January 2024 followed an older model with two grant periods and one loan period, so the EUR 1 million grant structure should not be applied retroactively to those earlier decisions.

Business Finland stated that funding could cover up to 75% of project costs. Grants were paid retrospectively on the basis of interim and periodic reports, so a funded company needed enough self-financing and a credible broader financing plan to carry the work between payments. The page also notes that selected companies often had substantial outside financing, such as venture capital, because YIC was intended to sit inside a wider international growth plan.

Who was eligible

The closed program had a substantially higher bar than the old front matter suggested. An applicant needed more than a Finnish registration and a desire to export. Business Finland looked for a functioning, scalable business model, paying customers in international markets, a direct internationalisation strategy, a competitive position, and the ability and willingness to obtain external private capital.

The core requirements published by Business Finland included the following:

• The company had to have been in operation for less than five years before the funding decision for the first phase. The age was calculated from the registration date. Funding could continue only until the company had been registered for eight years at the latest.
• If the company belonged to a group, the group companies had to meet the relevant age limits: under five years at the first financing decision and under eight years before financing ended.
• The company had to be small, with fewer than 50 employees and annual net sales or a balance-sheet total of no more than EUR 10 million.
• At least 10% of the company’s total costs had to have been allocated to research and development in one of the three years before the application. An auditor’s report was required to support this condition.
• The company had to employ a full-time management team and the key people required for rapid growth. Full-time key personnel were expected to hold a significant ownership interest; Business Finland says that this is typically at least 50% in high-growth companies.
• The company needed independent decision-making powers over its business and could not be a subsidiary. It also had to own the intellectual property rights significant to its business.
• The company could not simply be continuing another company’s business, commercialising a product that had already been commercialised through another company, or have been formed through a demerger, subject to the exceptions stated on the official page.
• The company could not be listed and could not have distributed profits under the program’s rules. The official page includes a narrow exception for a small own-share transaction valued at no more than EUR 300.

Business Finland also checked the company’s financial standing and previous public funding. The official page says funding could not be granted where statutory financial statements were missing, audits had not been completed as required, beneficial-owner information was not up to date, unpaid tax debts lacked an agreed payment plan, or earlier Tekes or Business Finland financial obligations were overdue.

The amount and phase logic

The published amount was not “not stated,” as the previous version of this page claimed. The current program description gave a total of EUR 1,000,000 in grants across three phases: EUR 250,000 for phase one, EUR 250,000 for phase two, and EUR 500,000 for phase three. That is a maximum program structure described by Business Finland, not an automatic award. Funding remained discretionary and depended on the company’s financial standing, project content, available resources, prior public funding, and the results of earlier projects.

Each phase had its own goals. Business Finland and the company defined measurable objectives based on the business plan, and those goals were recorded in the funding decision. At the end of each phase, Business Finland evaluated progress. Achieving the goals, together with the company’s financial situation and continuing prospects for rapid growth, affected whether later funding could proceed.

Examples of goals listed by the official page included growth in turnover, especially export turnover; the ability to obtain outside capital or other external funding; stronger company resources; and expansion into new markets. These examples explain why an application needed more than a list of activities. The applicant had to show how the work would change the company’s commercial position and how progress could be measured.

Application route used for the closed cycle

No new YIC application could be submitted after the published closing time. The following is the documented route for the last cycle and should be treated as preparation guidance only if Business Finland later announces a new round:

1. Discuss the company’s suitability with Business Finland before submitting an application. The official page tells prospective applicants to contact their Business Finland account manager or customer service.
2. Confirm that the company has enough self-financing and a credible financing plan. Because grants were paid retrospectively, the applicant could not rely on the grant arriving before project costs had to be covered.
3. Create the application in Business Finland’s funding e-service. From 18 March 2025, the application template could be created only by a responsible person registered in the Trade Register with the right to represent the company alone, or by a person with the relevant Suomi.fi corporate-financing authorisation.
4. Define two to five measurable goals for the phase. The goals needed to be based on the business plan and connected to concrete project and business-development outcomes.
5. Attach the project plan and a separate business plan if the business plan was not already included in the project plan. The project plan had to describe the company and market, the starting point, the connection to the business plan, tasks, staffing, results, schedule, and costs.
6. Include an initial plan for all three funding phases. Business Finland also required a separate project plan for each phase as the program progressed.
7. Attach the auditor’s report on YIC eligibility. The report covered the program conditions, including the R&D-cost requirement. Applicants could use the Statistics Finland R&D expenditure form or Business Finland’s calculation template as supporting material.
8. Submit current financial information: an income statement no more than two months old, a balance-sheet ledger for the current accounting period, a monthly cash-flow forecast, and an annual profit and funding forecast.
9. Submit the application and attachments through the e-service, then track processing there. If funding was approved, the company had to read and accept the decision and its terms before starting the funded work.

The application route was therefore documentation-heavy and staged. It was not enough to upload a pitch deck or a short funding request. The team needed an auditor-supported eligibility case, current financial data, a project budget, a multi-phase plan, and measurable commercial objectives.

Eligible and ineligible costs

The official page said Business Finland could accept costs starting from the date the application was submitted, at the earliest. That rule mattered for the closed cycle: spending before submission was not automatically eligible simply because it later appeared in the project plan.

Examples of eligible costs were wage and related personnel costs, subject to the page’s 30% limit, and purchases such as travel, services, materials, supplies, and equipment. The work had to be tied to the approved project and tracked through the required project accounting.

The page excluded purchased services from associated companies except for services from companies in the same group, voluntary insurance payments, gifts and stipends, costs that already included public aid, and measures related to exportation. The export exclusion included overhead charges directly tied to export volumes, establishing or operating a distribution network, and other export operations. A budget built around ordinary export overhead would therefore not match the published YIC cost rules.

What existing funded companies should know

The closure applied to new applications, not to companies already in the first or a later YIC funding period. Existing recipients still had to follow the terms in their funding decisions, keep project accounting, report implementation and costs, and notify Business Finland about changes. The official page says that phase goals, financial performance, and the company’s conditions for rapid growth all affected progression.

For those companies, the useful lesson is operational: retain evidence behind every reported milestone, keep the financial forecasts current, and distinguish funded project work from general company spending. A later phase was not guaranteed merely because an earlier phase had been approved.

What to do if you are looking for a current Finnish startup grant

This archive should not be used as proof that YIC applications are open. A founder looking for current funding should start from Business Finland’s live funding pages and confirm the name, eligibility rules, amount, deadline, and application form of a currently announced call. Business Finland has been changing its startup and growth-funding services, so a different instrument may have different R&D, company-age, self-financing, and pre-application requirements.

Do not substitute a future date for the archived deadline. Do not use rolling for YIC: the last official page gives a fixed closing date and says the call has ended. The next update to this entry should happen only after Business Finland publishes a new YIC call or formally reopens the service. At that point, the amount, eligibility, application steps, and deadline should be checked again from the new notice rather than copied from this archive.

Official sources

• Business Finland Young Innovative Enterprises (YIC)
• Business Finland notice closing the NIY funding call

The official program page is the primary reference for the historical funding structure and requirements. The closure notice explains why the call closed and confirms the 10 October 2025 deadline. Together, they support the archived status recorded in this page’s metadata.