Tuomas Siltala puts Finnish growth companies on international investors’ radar

Investments in private growth-stage companies are already an essential part of today’s capital markets, and a growing share of value creation happens in private growth companies. At the same time, Finland has top-tier growth companies looking for funding.

“Europe has a huge number of VC, growth and other professional investors who know that Finland produces and scales top-level space, health and defence technology companies. Investors deserve to hear about direct investment opportunities in them,” says Tuomas Siltala, the director building Springvest’s private placement business.

Siltala has spent years working on international private placements at investment banks and brokerage firms in Finland and abroad. He also has solid experience as a startup entrepreneur. At Springvest, his role is to find interesting growth companies and offer professional and institutional investors direct investment opportunities in them.

“In the end, the tune is much the same as a founder and in this new role. You have to find a good company, connect it with capital and the right investors, help it scale and, at best, help open the way to an exit.”

Siltala strongly believes in what technology companies from Finland have to offer. Behind them is Finnish technological expertise: Nokia’s legacy, a high-quality education system and a strong foundation of universities and research institutes.

“VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, for example, has been described alongside Stanford as one of the most effective generators of spin-off companies, and it has given rise to companies such as ICEYE, Volare and Kuva Space. I believe investors should be able to join the rounds of promising companies like these directly through private placements when the value creation potential is significant,” Siltala says.

Public share offerings and private placements support each other

Springvest added private placements alongside its public share offerings, which are open to all investors on its platform, in 2025. That year, it arranged ReOrbit’s €45 million Series A round. It was the largest Series A round of its kind in Finnish startup history and one of the largest Series A rounds in the European space sector.

The private placement portion of the round was €37 million. Investors included the Finnish pension insurers Varma and Elo, as well as Icebreaker.vc, Expansion VC, 10x Founders and Inventure VC.

Siltala sees that allocations from private and family office investors to private growth companies also give momentum to private placement work. They anchor the round and show that the company attracts investor interest. The comprehensive materials prepared for public share offerings also help when arranging private placements.

“Springvest has long experience in preparing funding rounds, and private placement work can be built on that foundation. We have a highly skilled analyst and sales team, which makes it easy to take this on with real ambition. My job is above all to find the best companies, build relationships with investors and bring these two worlds together,” Siltala says.

An efficient arranger helps investors make decisions

Siltala sees Springvest’s key strengths as its extensive experience in selling share issues for private growth companies and its ability to move fast.

“Springvest has a really strong track record of building a solid investor base for growth companies and executing share issues of €5–50 million. Speed matters in this business. A good company and a good investment opportunity won’t wait for months.”

Siltala also values Springvest’s compliance expertise. Springvest is an authorised investment firm under the EU’s MiFID II framework, supervised by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA). This makes participation easier, especially for institutions that have strict investment policies of their own or are subject to regulation.

“A regulated business needs clear processes and a culture of doing things right. Springvest has both,” Siltala says.