Founder Sprint
Founder Sprint is an intensive program crafted to help student bring out their best founder potential.
Aalto Founder Sprint (Applications for Fall 2026)
Aalto Founder Sprint (Fall 2026) applications are open. This is a highly selective, highly rated 3-month sandbox where Aalto students learn to build like true founders - trusted by students, founders, and VCs.
When
–
Where
Founder School HQ (Puumiehenkuja 5, 02150 Espoo)
Puumiehenkuja 5, 02150 Espoo
Registration period:
–
Event language(s)
English
Aalto Founder Sprint (Fall 2026) applications are open. This is a highly selective, highly rated 3-month sandbox where Aalto students learn to build like true founders - trusted by students, founders, and VCs.
Why you shouldn’t join Aalto Founder Sprint:
- You’ll stop hiding behind complexity. The program forces clarity: what are you building, for whom, and why now?
- You’ll have to get comfortable being uncomfortable: uncertainty, decisions, pitching, and investor conversations.
- You’ll be trained to move fast: validate first, ship fast - even when the tech is hard.
- You’ll go abroad for 1 week to validate your insights with people outside Finland.
Highly selective • Intense 3 months • 9 ECTS
During the program, you’ll be mentored by founders and operators who have built companies themselves - people who’ve shipped, hired, raised, and scaled. They’ll give you direct, practical feedback and help you make better decisions faster, because they know the game from the inside.
Chief mentors:
Mårten Mickos
CEO in The Service of Startup CEOs | ex-MySQL, HackerOne, Eucalyptus, Nokia
- Johannes Korpela
Investor at Wave Ventures - Kristo Ovaska
Founder & CEO of Taito.ai
Founder & Board Member of Smartly.io - Mikko Mäntylä
Co-founder & CEO of Realm - Sami Inkinen
Co-founder of Trulia and Virta Health - Ilkka Kivimäki
Founder & Partner Maki.vc, Entrepreneur - Niko Eiden
Co-founder & CEO of IXI - Jyri Engeström & Teemu Mattila & Timo Ahopelto
Partners at Lifeline Ventures - Bastian Hasslinger
Partner at Index Ventures - Juha Vartiainen
Co-founder of IQM - Marianne Vikkula
CEO at Wolt - Monika Liikamaa
Co-founder at Enfuce - Noora Saksa
CEO at Slush - Peter Sarlin
Founder & CDEO at Silo AI - and more...
Aalto Founder Sprint for Ambitious Students.
FAQs
Founder Sprint is a talent-first entrepreneurship program for the most driven students across all Aalto schools. Anyone can apply, and no team or idea is needed.
The program is a great fit for people with high ambition but no outlet.
Over 13 intense weeks you’ll “learn to sprint” at Silicon-Valley pace — researching emerging trends, prototyping real products and learning to think like a founder — while surrounded by a tight, high-trust peer group and a network of top-profile founders.
We’re looking for exceptional students who make things happen: people with strong agency, unique spikes of talent, clear thinking and commitment to results. Academic records are useful but not what Sprint is about.
If you’re ready to become the kind of founder who can start anything, this is for you.
Anyone enrolled at Aalto University (bachelors, masters, doctorate) is eligible.
Not at all. What matters is your drive to learn, work in a team, take initiative, and build - not your past business experience. You don’t need a startup idea. You just need ambition, drive, curiosity and a teamworking spirit.
- Talent‑first: builds from personal drive, not academic record
- Built for velocity: you’ll move at the pace of world-class founders
- A team culture you’ll remember for life: high-trust, high-performance
- Three sprints, real outcomes: blending research, product, and business strategy
- Whole‑person development: Mindset. Leadership. Grit. Self-awareness. The program focuses on personal growth with purpose.
- Guidance and mentoring from people who have built things, not just studied them
Option 1: Ask our SprintGPT ( Please note that the bot can make mistakes)
Option 2: Read our full FAQ document here
Option 3: Prefer a human? reach out to tai.tran@aalto.fi
Explore Aalto Founder Sprint
