Aaltoes

The 3-part Founder Funding series is back for the fall kicking off with fundraising in hardware startups. Join Aaltoes and Icebreaker VC for a fireside chat with Urho Konttori, founder of Varjo and Distance, moderated by Riku Seppälä, General Partner at Icebreaker VC. Bringing together founder experience and an investor’s perspective, we’ll explore what it takes to raise funding while building a hardware startup.⁠ What makes hardware fundraising different from software? What do investors look for in hardware founders? Come hear insights from both sides of the table and learn about hardware funding whether you are looking at a career as a founder or an investor, or you are just curious. The conversation will be followed by a traditional Q&A and networking. October 20th | 18.00 Startup Sauna https://luma.com/ezfvv3p1

Navigating Male-Dominated Environments Roundtable A curated, high-trust roundtable for women navigating male-dominated environments in startups, tech, and the wider ecosystem. This is not a panel. It is a real conversation. Expect honesty, nuance, and practical takeaways you can actually use. In the room: • Anna Brchisky, Founder and CEO of Bamla. • Riikka Rajaviita, Founder of Human Runway One more speaker will be announced soon. Tuesday 20 October - 16:00 Startup Sauna Chatham house rules. Kept small on purpose. Sign up: https://luma.com/aaltoes-uj9l

🚀 Registration for the Steady Energy excursion is now OPEN! 🚀 Grab your spot right here: 👉 https://luma.com/r5w06u5d There are only 20 spots available, so act fast! 🔥

From our friends at Dash: DASH Design Bit #6 is here! 🔥 Lead Up: Getting a yes for your creative idea from those in charge. If your colleague only spoke English, would you pitch in Finnish? Specialists tend to speak the language of their craft, while those in charge speak the language of money, risk, and results. Too often, great ideas get lost in translation. For Design Bit #6, we’re joined by Janita Suojanen, Chief Commercial Officer at Kind Company, who has been on both sides of that conversation. She’ll show how to translate your idea into a yes. Come along to learn, challenge your thinking, and meet others interested in creative ideas and how we bring them forward. 🗓️ October 20, 2026 📍 Startup Hub A Grid, Otakaari 5, Espoo 🔗 Sign up here: https://luma.com/sb865qgc See you at Bit #6! 💜

Welcome to an Aaltoes Founder Story, featuring Upright Project! Upright builds an AI engine that quantifies companies' real-world impacts, risks and opportunities. Founded in Helsinki in 2017, it is used by 300+ companies, investors and advisors, and its data powers TIME and Statista's World's Most Impactful Companies 2026 list. Our speaker is Annu Nieminen, Co-founder and CEO of Upright, and an Aalto Information Networks alum. Join us to hear Upright's story, meet Annu, and spend a lovely evening with us. 19th October - 18.00 Startup Sauna Sign Up https://luma.com/aaltoes-i7d9

🚀 Aaltoes x Steady Energy Excursion 🚀 Want to dive into the world of energy innovation and hear about the journey from a startup to an IPO? Here is your chance to join our exclusive excursion to the Steady Energy office in Espoo! 🗓 When: Tuesday, October 27 from 15:00 to 19:00 📍 Where: Steady Energy office (Sammonsilta 8, 02100 Espoo) + evening activity nearby ✨ What to expect: An inside look into Steady Energy's growth story, their groundbreaking technology, and how they are shaping the future of the energy sector • Light snacks and refreshments provided at the office • A relaxed vibe with no dress code • Evening activities featuring darts, pool, and socializing, wrapping up by 19:00 Capacity: Limited to 20 students Registration link will be shared on 13.10 at 17:00. Stay tuned and grab your spot as soon as the registration opens!

From Startup Idea to Live Cloud Service Workshop for founder-curious and early-stage entrepreneurs to understand and build the minimum cloud infrastructure required to turn a business idea into a working digital product. This is not a hackathon. You learn hands-on to configure cloud to look like your MVP of your idea. You can implement your idea later and for that phase the workshop will give you ability to build minimum cloud infrastructure to do that. Why use cloud services to build your MVP instead of a higher level tool? The workshop teaches you how to structure your idea and understand what cloud services offer. You will get understanding when cloud services are the right environment for you or if you should consider co-location and your own hardware. The workshop is held by Pasi Lahtinen, the Founder of Atomidata Oy. October 15th | 18.00 Startup Sauna https://luma.com/d79vrlg4

From our friends at Founder School: FounderTalks #10 brings Tuomas Rasila from Sensofusion. For everyone interested in defence tech this is a must see! Sensofusion is a Finnish company that builds advanced anti-drone systems used by military and law enforcement worldwide. Their system, Airfence, is used by the Finnish Defence Forces and governments on four continents. 📅Thursday 15 Oct, 16:00 to 17:30 📍Marsio, Otakaari 2. Seating is first come first serve, so be on time. Come join us and learn something new! Registration link👇 https://link.webropolsurveys.com/EP/41F64F8B93AFE420

We are excited to continue with our themed events for the month at Prompt, this time launching a Build Night on the Operations theme! 🧡 This is not your typical Build Night, as we are co-organizing with Luo to bring you some new twists. We will have an opening fireside chat from a guest speaker, more time to build, tools provided by Luo, more coaches to go around and will welcome more people to Startup Sauna to build with us. We welcome students, experienced operators, builders and anyone interested. 21st October - 17.15 Startup Sauna Sign up https://luma.com/aaltoes-ewe7

Aaltoes getting into defense tech?

This December, NS27, an Aaltoes project, is taking a hackathon somewhere it has never been. 200 hackers start with a Ground Hack in Otaniemi. The best 40 earn a seat on a train to Lapland, build together all the way north and pitch in the Arctic. NS27 Arctic Express, built together with Iterate and NS27. luma.com/ppxp9k0p

DAWN Demo Night is the final event of this fall's startup competition for fuksis. For the past few weeks, the teams from different guilds have been building their startup ideas, and now they'll pitch them to a panel of judges. One team wins and takes the title home for their guild, together with some valuable prizes. Come check out what other fuksis have been building and cheer your friends and guildmates on to take home the title!🥳 October 8th | 18.00 Startup Sauna https://luma.com/aaltoes-z4kh

​AI is changing how products are designed. But what does that look like in practice at an early-stage startup? How to balance high quality and speed of execution? ​We're bringing together three founding designers and founders who are building with AI every day, to show their work and share what's actually working for them: ​Jenna Pitkälä - Founding Product Designer at Userlens ​Veeti Huotari - Founding Designer at Realm ​Artemi Vaarakallio - Co-Founder at Silt ​Each speaker will walk through their own work and share the tools, workflows and tips they use to design great products with AI. You'll leave with practical ideas you can put to use in your own projects right away. Startup Sauna | 18.00 October 7th https://luma.com/aaltoes-ngqr

Prompt Operations Hackathon · Oct 24–25 · Startup Sauna Every company runs on operations: invoices, scheduling, reporting, handoffs between teams. Most of it is still done by hand, and a lot of it could be done by agents. For our fourth hackathon, we're spending a weekend building exactly those agents. You'll work on real operations challenges from our partner companies, build a working agentic solution and demo it on Sunday. 📅 October 24–25 📍 Startup Sauna, Espoo 💰 Cash prize pool 🤝 Challenge partners announced soon Builders, designers and anyone who's ever been buried in ops work are welcome. Applications are open now 👇 Sign up luma.com/aaltoes-gapx

Last chance to apply! 🚀

Have you thought you want to be a founder but struggled with getting started? Not sure which advice is good? Join us tomorrow for an evening where Para, founder of StartupBlueprint, will lead an interactive workshop where you will not only build a website to find your first customers, but have a real plan of how to reach them. September 30th | 16.00-18.00 Startup Sauna Garage https://luma.com/99ashjk5

Not building a startup? Doesn’t matter. You can still bring an idea to the mic. Any idea. Thursday 18:00 Startup Sauna https://luma.com/wojrdstl

Start your weekend off with a moment of movement, mindfulness and discussion. ​Movement can inspire action, and action is what the civilization is beholden to disrupt climate change and the rigid structures our societies rely on. Join a session of movement, yoga and pilates, and something in between them. Importantly, you're here to listen and discuss with experts within the field of sustainability in its many different forms, from research to startups. Event format: 20-30 minutes movement 30 minutes discussion - 3 cycles. There will be an instructor to guide you through the movement. Bring your water bottle. Bring your own towels. Bring your own yoga mat (we can provide for some if needed). When: Saturday October 3rd 10.00-13.00 Where: ODDSpace, Teollisuuskatu 9D, Helsinki Sign up: https://luma.com/o26afpr7

Last few days to apply to our San Francisco Community trip! roam.aaltoes.com Applications close on Wednesday 30th at 23.59

Reminder to sign up to this!🙌