From breakthrough to business: Finland’s Aalto University is turning world-class science into companies

When IQM announced plans to pursue a listing in the U.S. by summer 2026 – becoming the first European quantum computing company to do so – it made global news.  The headlines were also greeted with enthusiasm on Aalto’s Otaniemi campus, part of Greater Helsinki: IQM, founded in 2018 on Aalto research, could deliver a significant return on the university’s ownership stake if the listing succeeds.

This is neither a stroke of luck nor a one-off success. It is the result of sustained research combined with a clear commercialisation strategy. 

‘This is an integral part of how a research and innovation university like ours operates,’ says Marianna Bom, CFO of Aalto University. ‘If we want publicly funded research – largely financed by taxpayers – to generate innovations that benefit society, we need a clear and efficient mechanism for transferring technology into companies.’

A double bottom line: impact first

‘Our primary interest is not financial gain,’ Bom emphasises. ‘We call this a double bottom-line activity: impact first, while also recognising the importance of financial sustainability – especially at a time when public funding for universities is decreasing.’

The model is designed to be investor-friendly and fully compliant with state aid regulations. Aalto does not remain a long-term speculative shareholder, nor does it typically inject additional capital. Equity is taken only when there are also external investors involved, ensuring that the company’s valuation is market-based rather than determined by a publicly funded actor.

‘Investors expect that no party extracts cash before all shareholders benefit proportionally. Taking equity instead of cash makes the model workable,’ Bom explains.

A 40 percent share for inventors

A defining feature of Aalto’s model is the strong incentive for inventors. After costs, 40 percent of the university’s capital gains from an exit are distributed to the original inventors – regardless of whether they join the startup.

This interpretation of the Finnish Universities Inventions Act is more generous than in many institutions. In some universities, the inventor’s share is determined at technology transfer. At Aalto, it’s determined at exit, so inventors benefit from subsequent value growth.

‘We believe that those who choose to continue their academic careers have just as much right to benefit financially from a successful innovation,’ says Bom. ‘Many researchers are driven primarily by science, not entrepreneurship.’

The incentive is designed to foster a culture in which researchers actively consider the societal impact of their work. Aalto pays modest rewards for invention disclosures, patent applications and granted patents – but the real upside lies in long-term success.

‘We hope that when stories like IQM emerge, they encourage others to submit invention disclosures and consider commercial pathways, ultimately benefiting society as a whole,’ Bom notes.

Scaling up commercialisation

In just over two years, 18 spin-offs have been launched, 17 under the new model. Feedback from founders, internal teams and investors has been overwhelmingly positive.

The ambition is bold. By 2030, Aalto aims to double annual invention disclosures from approximately 150 to 300, increase annual patent applications from around 60 to over 100, and raise the number of spin-offs from 0–5 per year historically to as many as 25 annually.

‘These are high-reaching targets,’ Honkalinna acknowledges. ‘But if Finland wants to achieve a step change in economic growth, we need to scale deep tech innovation.’

A calculated risk – like a lottery ticket

Deep tech ventures often require long development cycles and substantial capital. Failure rates are high.

‘Sometimes we say that we place a lottery ticket into every company created from university research,’ Bom says. ‘We then wait and see how it develops. Many will not survive or will grow modestly. But occasionally, a truly disruptive innovation emerges.’

Failure is not a flaw but a feature of both research and entrepreneurship.

‘Fundamental research must be allowed to fail regularly,’ Honkalinna adds. ‘If we sometimes attempt innovations that do not work, that is not failure – it is learning. The breakthrough stories would not exist without a culture that tolerates experimentation.’

Importantly, the ‘ticket’ has effectively already been paid for: the underlying research is typically funded through public sources, including core government funding, grants from the Research Council of Finland, and Business Finland’s Research to Business instrument.

‘It would make little sense to leave these results unused within the university,’ Honkalinna says. ‘They only create impact when a committed team takes entrepreneurial risk and drives them forward.’

Teams, ecosystems and new industry clusters

Both Bom and Honkalinna stress that intellectual property alone is not enough.

‘A patent is worthless to us if it is not accompanied by the people who understand and can develop the technology,’ Bom says. ‘Without a committed team, there is no societal impact.’

Over time, Aalto and its predecessor, Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), have completed more than 140 technology transfers. These have led to companies such as Bluefors and Relex.

According to Honkalinna, the significance of deep tech is increasingly recognised – not only in Finland but globally. Investors who once hesitated due to larger capital requirements and longer exit horizons are now actively targeting deep tech opportunities.

‘We can clearly see that Finland’s next leap in economic growth will come from new deep tech innovations,’ she says. ‘Aalto has the capability to generate entirely new business clusters – in quantum technologies, space, energy storage, medtech and beyond. These would not exist without our outstanding professors and researchers.’

A spillover effect is also gathering momentum. Experienced founders, many of them Aalto alumni, are mentoring, investing and launching new ventures. Entrepreneurial know-how is compounding.

‘We are seeing a generation that is fearless, internationally connected and ambitious,’ Honkalinna says. ‘The more experienced founders we have within and around Aalto, the easier it becomes to build the next wave of scalable companies.’

A global deep tech hub in Otaniemi?

Looking five to ten years ahead, Honkalinna sees a realistic prospect of Otaniemi evolving into a globally significant deep tech hub – a place where world-class research is systematically translated into world-class entrepreneurship.

‘With the right talent, networks and momentum, we can attract top researchers and entrepreneurs from around the world,’ she says. ‘We already have exceptional students – bold, capable and impact-driven. There is tremendous opportunity here.’

For Aalto, commercialisation is not a side activity but a structural component of its mission as an innovation university: to turn research into societal impact – responsibly, transparently and in partnership with those who create it.