Teemu Vidgren
COO, Microsoft Oy
With positive energy, we get creative and innovative. This is how I’ve experienced startups – fueled by energetic people, their ideas and can-do attitude. We’ve seen that energy at our local community space Flux as well as in our local and global startup programs.
With Microsoft Flux, a vivid and innovative community space in the center of Helsinki, we started a three-journey in April 2016 to help first time founders validate their ideas, build their networks and grow their business. Since then, our dedicated Flux team has been on-site welcoming 1,000 visitors monthly, helping more than 800 early phase startups and organizing more than 200 events yearly. With this, people with startups have had a space to try something new, a community for sharing ideas and guidance to grow business with technology. Additionally, we’ve helped selected startups to grow internationally with our Turbopump program as well as with our global Microsoft for Startups program. Great achievements that we’re all proud of.
At the same time, it’s been awesome to see how startup mindset and communities in Finland have flourished and Helsinki has matured as a startup hub since the early days of Flux. Communities like Maria 01, The Shortcut, A-Grid, and various co-working spaces such as Mothership of Work and Epicenter are now providing broader support for startups in Helsinki. With all this development in the Finnish startup scene, our three-year journey with Flux comes to an end. Now, it’s the right time for us to build our next steps on that great foundation and adjust our startup focus in alignment with Microsoft’s business priorities.
Despite closing the physical Microsoft Flux community space in Helsinki at the end of February 2019, our commitment to Finnish startups continues in two ways. First, Finnish startups will have access to our global startup programs to get support for growing international: Microsoft for Startups program and the Microsoft ScaleUp program. Secondly, to continue our support for early stage startups, we’ll partner with Maria01 and The Shortcut, both well established and energetic startup communities in Helsinki and part of the Startup Foundation. At Maria01, we’ll provide coaching and arrange meetings with potential new partners to join the Microsoft for Startups program. With T he Shortcut, we’ll organize cloud learning and training leading to certifications, in an environment that will be the new home for Flux furniture and equipment.
The value of Flux will continue living in the large number of people we’ve been able to engage with and support as well as in the startups born and grown with and at Flux. It is people who made Flux a home for creativity, innovations and great energy. We’ve heard from many of you how much you’ve valued Flux, starting from great coffee and going to all aspects of business and life: energizing technology discussions, life-long friends, trusted business partners, and creative innovations. We’ll carry that with us to the next startup activities to help businesses in Finland succeed.
A walk down the memory lane
First Event – Emotionhack 22/04/2016 We’ve hosted various events in Flux since the beginning. The first one we hosted, and tested our space with, was Emotionhack where coders, designers, scientists and enthusiasts got together to explore and hack around empathy online. In-House applications start rolling in 15/05/2016 We’ve been supporting early stage companies get […]
Teemu Vidgren
COO, Microsoft Oy
