The sauna side
Jolla is a poster boy for the Nokia Bridge programme, the company's start-up seed funding for departing employees. Public funding of research and development is another part of Finland's tech start-up success.
It is third in equity financing in Europe, after the UK and France. Takes, a public R&D funding body, has a €550m (£423m; $637m) annual budget. There are tech incubators such as Aalto University's Startup Sauna in Helsinki, modeled on Google labs with, yes, saunas. Some 126 start-ups have graduated since 2010.
And the well-reviewed Vigo accelerator, launched by Finland's Ministry of Employment and Economy, follows an Israeli and Singaporean model by giving mentors financial stakes in the companies. One beneficiary from Takes was Helsinki wallpaper start-up Feathr.com, started by husband and wife duo Anne and Tom Puukko. She is Finnish and ex-Nokia, he English.
"The investment gives you a stamp of approval. If you start a business with your own money, even if you're going well, people say no-one else has looked at you and said it's a good idea," says Mrs. Puukko.
The couple has gathered wallpaper designs from roughly 300 artists, "everything from tattooists, surf ware designers, photographers, fine artists," says Mrs. Puukko, and will focus initially on the UK market.
She says wallpaper still largely uses Victorian printing techniques, and digital printing in the sector has not yet been explored. "We're going back to William Morris," she says