Health Capital Helsinki’s overview of 2020

2020 was an exceptional year – and we are not out of the woods yet. During this time, the value of ecosystem developers like Health Capital Helsinki has increased as the need for collaborating and innovating virtually as well as startup and market access support is higher than ever. Taking one last look into 2020, we summarised our key activities and achievements last year.

The rapid onset of Covid-19 and the devastating global consequences were beyond what anyone imagined. The situation placed a significant challenge to all interaction by blocking physical meetings. Everything became virtual.

For health startups the situation has presented both challenges and opportunities. It became more difficult to open new doors, create personal relations with investors and meet new clients. On the other hand, Covid-19 accelerated the digitalisation in healthcare around the world, and the demand for new digital solutions and diagnostics skyrocketed.

The value of ecosystem developers like Health Capital Helsinki has increased dramatically as the need for new virtual contacts, network building, innovation generation, startup support and market access support is higher than ever. Therefore, we at Health Capital Helsinki team feel proud to be here and are highly motivated to do our part to lift the economy and make Finnish health innovations fly.

Health Capital Helsinki highlights and key activities in 2020

Health Capital Helsinki worked hard to connect Finnish health startups with international corporations and investors: we organised over 50 matchmaking meetings, 20 Finnish startups and 26 university research teams were engaged in pitching opportunities, two new companies were established in the Greater Helsinki region, and two R&D projects were initiated.
Our team had key roles in organising the HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Digital Event, Europe’s most influential digital health event. The opening event, Good Morning from Finland show hosted by Health Capital Helsinki was the most popular session of the conference. The show, and the Health Capital Helsinki’s showroom and webinars presenting Greater Helsinki health ecosystem opportunities reached together over a thousand participants.
Health Incubator Helsinki, Finland’s first long-term incubator program for research-based startups, was launched and started operations 12 brilliant startups.
We launched Health TV, a live web TV show discussing the hottest topics in the health scene and promoting Finnish startups. First two shows on digital care pathways and health data, targeted to European and US corporate customers, captivated the interest of hundreds of people.
Our social media accounts are active on a daily basis and newsletters are sent out regularly, delivering news from our ecosystem and startups, e.g. an overview of Finnish innovation to fight off Covid-19, and a survey on the effect of Covid-19 on Finnish health tech companies.
Stakeholder survey in December (n=83) showed that Health Capital Helsinki has succeeded in connecting people and organisations and in matchmaking ecosystem players with international stakeholders. The collaboration and communications have added value. According to the survey, Health Capital Helsinki’s strengths are can-do attitude, networks and overall expertise.

In 2020, we organised over 50 matchmaking meetings.

We couldn’t have done this without our ecosystem and partners. Thank you! Let’s continue discussing, collaborating and hopefully even meeting each other in real life as 2021 rolls on.