The nominees for the Green Transition Business Competition 2025 have been selected - 10 innovative and growth-oriented companies participating

The nominees for the Green Transition Business Competition 2025 have been selected – 10 innovative and growth-oriented companies participating

The winner will be awarded at the Green Transition Gala in Oulu, 22nd of May. At the annual awards gala, the award nominees will pitch their companies and business to the jury and the audience.

The winner is selected based on the innovativeness, growth potential and environmental friendliness of the company’s solution or service. The winner is selected by the competition jury, which consists of representatives from Business Finland, Finnvera, Aalto University, the Natural Resources Institute Finland, the University of Oulu, Centria University of Applied Sciences and Taaleri Bioindustry VC.

Award nominees represent different industries

The Green Transition Business Competition does not have any industry restrictions, which means that companies from different industries will be participating in the competition this year as well. Among others, companies from the fields of AI, forestry and food industry are participating.

The award nominees selected by the jury in the Green Transition Business Competition 2025 are (in alphabetical order):

Capalo AI (Kuopio)

Capalo AI is a company originating from the Department of Applied Physics at the University of Eastern Finland. The founders have a background in computational physics, computer science, and the use of AI in climate change modeling.

The CEO of Capalo AI, Henri Taskinen, was inspired to do something of his own while still in high school through mobile game projects that he was doing with his friend Riku Kukkonen. The inspiration grew stronger as he met other people who shared the same passion at the Department of Applied Physics.

In 2022 Henri Taskinen, Riku Kukkonen, Eerik Jauhiainen and Teemu Lappalainen founded Capalo AI. They wanted to offer better optimization for energy markets in order to adjust production or consumption of energy flexibly according to demand. Optimization and controlling the use of electric batteries came up in discussions and therefore the team of Capalo AI decided to concentrate on providing services to the owners of electric batteries.

Elmery Oy (Espoo)

Elmery Oy is a revenue-stage deep tech company, offering patented cost-efficient and sustainable technology for critical metal refining.

Elmery’s technology helps the critical mineral value chain to reduce CO2 emissions, chemical usage and related waste, improve recycling of metals and enable metal recovery from earlier unviable sources.

Fiberdom Oy (Vantaa)

Fiberdom Oy is a Finnish material innovation company replacing non-essential plastics with a recyclable, home-compostable, and 100 % plastic-free monomaterial made from natural wood fibers. Our patented process delivers high performance and true circularity — without coatings, binders, or compromizing efforts. From packaging and food contact to storage and interiors, Fiberdom is enabling the global transition to smarter materials that work for both people and the planet.

Innomost Oy (Kokkola)

Inommost Oy, founded in 2016, is a Finnish company utilizing the side streams of forest industry, especially birch bark. The company processes renewable raw materials into bio-based products such as betulin and suberin that provide environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil-based materials.

The operations are based on a circular economy and sustainable development. Use of the certified birch bark reduces forest degradation and ensures traceability of the raw materials. The production process aims carbon neutrality and minimizing environmental impacts.

Innomost products can be used in cosmetics, hygien products, glues and coatings, replacing harmful substances such as microplastics and palm oil. The company is promoting grean transition by offering sustainable and efficient solutions supporting business of its partners and reducing environmental foot print.

KOKO Forest Oy (Helsinki)

Koko Forest Oy produces information about forest ecosystems and diversity utilizing modern satellite technology, AI and interdisciplinary ecological understanding. The science-based processes produce almost realtime information about the state of forest enabling sustainable forest management anywhere in the world. Sustainable development is in the center of our values. We believe in fair green transition and we want to do our part to accelerate it.

LignoSphere Company Oy (Espoo)

LignoSphere will fulfill the decades-long promise of lignin, nature’s own glue, to become the future of adhesives as well as coatings. Today, well over 90 % of all adhesives produced globally are fossil-based. We can change this.

Despite raw lignin being a low-cost natural material with abundant availability as a side stream of pulp mills, it is also notoriously difficult to handle and use in real industrial applications. The solution? The LignoSphere™ process, which transforms lignin into a form that behaves much better and naturally forms strong bonds. We already have our first industrial end-customer lined up to use our product when the volume production starts, and plenty of validated interest from several international adhesive and coating producers.

When we add to the equation that our process is efficient and low-cost, with no pressure to add a “green premium” to the end-product price, we really have something financially and environmentally pioneering in our hands.

Montinutra Oy (Turku)

Boreal Bioproducts is a finnish biorefinery startup that extracts responsible bio-based raw materials from the side streams of the domestic forest industry to accelerate the green transition.

Nordtreat Oy (Vantaa)

Nordtreat Oy is promoting sustainable wood construction by developing and producing bio-based flame retardants for timber products. Sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions fulfill EU-standards for different fire classifications and enable safe use of beautiful wood surfaces even in the most demanding buildings in interior and exterior cladding, CLT and glulam structures, and other wood surfaces.

Onego Bio (Helsinki)

Onego Bio is a food ingredient company on a mission to create a more resilient food system through its product Bioalbumen® – the first non-animal egg protein with an amino acid sequence identical to the natural protein. Made through precision fermentation, Bioalbumen® matches the taste, nutrition, and functionality of the main protein from traditional eggs with an environmental impact around 90% smaller. Its unmatched versatility makes it ideal across a wide range of applications, while providing greater cost and supply stability for food manufacturers. Onego Bio aims to stabilize the egg supply chain by producing the perfect protein that’s the cornerstone of so many food applications around the world.

Soletair Power Oy (Lappeenranta)

Soletair Power, founded in 2016 in Finland, pioneers building-integrated carbon dioxide capture solutions. The Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology of the company retrofits into existing HVAC systems, enabling buildings to capture about 400 tons of CO2 from air annually, while reducing HVAC energy consumption by up to 50 %, improving indoor air quality, and lowering operational costs. Each unit’s annual CO2 capture equals 3 hectares of 30-year-old Nordic forest. Captured CO2 can be stored or utilized to generate carbon credits. Modular design enables easy installation and widespread urban adoption. With the highest number of integrated carbon capture unit deliveries in the world, Soletair Power is making its vision of turning cities into carbon sinks a reality.