Taking Finnish engineering expertise overseas has always been a core element of the internationalisation strategy of Unikie, a software developer headquartered in Tampere.
Unikie, a software developer headquartered in Tampere, Finland, has succeeded in what most startup entrepreneurs dream of while racing from one technology event to another: signing collaboration agreements with several leading technology providers such as Nokia, Solita and Valmet.
Esko Mertsalmi, the chief executive of the four-year-old startup, uses an ice hockey analogy – a relatively common trait in that part of the country – to explain the success.
“Get the puck to the net and good things will happen,” he remarks self-deprecatingly.
“We’ve put in a lot of work,” he adds to expand on the analogy. “But maybe the logos of big international clients [in our references] have been a bit easier to come by than we dared to expect initially. I suppose we’ve just been doing the right things successfully.”
Unikie, he tells, was initially prepared to spend the first five years building a platform that enables it to run a profitable business domestically and pursue its internationalisation goals.
Unikie has recorded a profit in each of its 48 months in operation and added to its headcount at an impressive pace. The company wrapped up last year with a staff of 250 spread across its subcontractor network and a turnover of 16 million euros, 80 per cent of which was derived from Finland.
Read the whole story from Good News Finland
