Grannenfelt Finance brings to the FiBAN community a broad knowledge of both the Finnish financial markets and, in particular, the various grant and debt financing opportunities in the European Union. Their team has decades of experience in the financial sector and good relationships with various players. Their aim is always to find the most suitable financing package for each company, with as little dilution of ownership as possible.

It is important for us to be a member of FiBAN because many Finnish growth companies get their start with angel funding. FiBAN’s membership includes experts and professionals from many different areas of business. We believe that together we can develop and accelerate the development of innovative ideas into businesses and further into strong gorwth drivers.”

Eeva Grannenfelt, the Chair of the Board at Grannenfelt

Helping Finnish SMEs and growth companies

Grannenfelt Finance’s goal since its inception has been to help Finnish SMEs and growth companies get access to finance. In recent years, the financial market in Finland has fragmented outside the traditional banking sector. At the same time, the conditions and access to bank finance, in general, have become more stringent. For this reason, they knew that they needed to invest in the scope and coverage of their financial services – they needed to help companies not only with debt financing but also with equity and grant financing.

The second reason for setting up was the huge investment by the European Union, particularly in the SME sector, both in terms of grant and debt finance. This was a big change in the financial markets about six years ago and their experts found that these significant opportunities were not widely known or exploited in Finland. Soon, these financing opportunities will be even more diversified with the new EU funding period starting this year in 2022.

EU funding is an exceptionally good financing option for businesses. The challenge is the length of the application process and the lower success rate of grant funding compared to, for example, Business Finland grants. It is also always important to bear in mind when applying for funding that the development project must be revolutionary at EU level and must develop the EU’s competitiveness. In recent years, Grannenfelt Finance has, like the European Union, also invested in the Green Deal field and helped several projects in this area to obtain funding.

Grannenfelt Finance works closely with Inspiralia, Europe’s best-known organization specializing in EU grants. Inspiralia has a very high success rate due to, among other things, a good initial qualification process which also means that the client does not pay for anything extra. In addition to Inspiralia, they are also working closely with Business Finland’s new EU Financial Advisory Service team. 

The experts in their team have decades of experience with different financial market players and instruments, which gives them good relationships with different financiers and organizations. They also help these financial market players to take advantage of EU guarantee schemes which also benefit the Finnish SME market. 

Warmly welcome to the FiBAN community!

More information:

Eeva Grannenfelt, Chair of the Board at Grannenfelt Finance
+358 50 5446 355
eeva.grannenfelt@grannenfeltfinance.fi

Aija Bärlund, Interim Managing Director, FiBAN
+358 40 6810 245
aija.barlund@fiban.org