Curious about what is going on at Epicenter Helsinki, House of Digital Innovation? Then you have come to the right place. In the Epicenter Helsinki Blog you will get the chance to meet the Epicenter community, get knowledge from the digital field and read success stories. Enjoy your read!
During what may felt like the most challenging of times, we have been privileged to witness some of the best of humanity: the power of community during COVID-19 is something to behold. Within a community driven coworking environment filled with some of the brightest minds in the startup, scale-up and entrepreneurs scene, sparks of creativity have become fuelled by the ever-changing situation, leading to unsuspected partnerships, innovation and new business.
In November, our member companies FundYou, River Recycle and EANA – a part of the Ambitious Africa organization – picked each others brains to explore how their respective businesses representing a colourful variety of industries could come together to contribute to an important cause – that being one of circular economy.
FundYou joined the Epicenter community in October. The startup led by Anders Lindeberg runs a crowdfunding platform that enables startups, creatives and impact projects to reach out to contributors to fund their ventures. On top of that, FundYou focuses on offering an innovative platform for companies, where they can contribute to projects solving our major societal and environmental challenges. In return, companies are provided visibility and easy engagement in their startup community of thousands, access to game changers and valuable content for corporate communications.
“There are plenty of opportunities for equity and B2C audiences in crowdfunding, but we are filling the gap in between by offering something entirely unique. A social impact crowdfunding platform focused on B2B, where entrepreneurs and artists can receive funding, audience engagement and endorsements from other companies that thrive social impact. Increasingly, companies are aware of their own impact and responsibility for the wider society”, CEO and founder Lindeberg says.
Right away after joining, the team around FundYou used the potential of Epicenter’s ecosystem. Special two operators caught their attention, kickstarting a cooperation between member companies RiverRecycle and EANA bottles.
“We joined Epicenter because of the inspirational spaces, networking opportunities and the community supporting our startup to grow”, Milja Mäkelä, Head of Marketing at FundYou tells.
RiverRecycle is a startup focused on recovering plastic waste from the world’s most polluted rivers and harnessing the raw material value for circular economy. Within the cooperation, RiverRecycle uses the FundYou platform to raise funds to support their goal for cleaning up the world’s polluted waters, for good.
Among other rewards, contributors receive a RiverRecycle customized EANA bottle, which are produced by Epicenter member and made out of recycled materials.
“We want to change the old-fashioned perception, that only non-profit organizations and governments can drive change. We believe that it is the entrepreneurs that are the most effective driver of change, either as contributors or as game changers. Our platform brings both together”, Mäkelä describes.
RiverRecycle’s crowdfunding campaign launches 1st of December on FundYou and campaign rewards are offered in cooperation with Ambitious Africa and the EANA bottles, that are entirely made out of recycled materials. If you are curious to learn more about FundYou, find Milja or Johannes in Epicenter’s open working spaces, or contact them directly via milja@fundyou.fi and johannes@fundyou.fi.
Read more about our membership options here, or send us an email via hello@epicenterhelsinki.com and we’re happy to show you around!