Unifund invested in Howspace's new financing round
Unifund contributed already to the first investment round of Howspace in 2017.
The initial investors’ confidence in Howspace’s future is evidenced by the fact that all investors of the first financing round are involved in this round as well. Institutional investors are represented by Business Finland, Midinvest and Unifund. In addition, ten business angels have invested in this financing round.
Howspace is an interactive learning and development platform, which has about 200,000 active users. Its rapidly grown user base includes, among others, consulting firms, large companies, some of the largest trade unions in Finland, municipalities, cities, and state agencies.
CEO Ilkka Mäkitalo has long experience in the fields of change management and learning. For more than 20 years, he has become familiar with the types of challenges faced by Howspace users.
“Organisations live in continuous change. The capacity to learn and create new insights, to get employees committed, and to engage in effective digital cooperation has become a main asset for organisations. We have developed Howspace based on the ways how learning and working are changing.
I am truly grateful and excited about the excellent reception of our product among the customers, both in Finland and internationally, for example, in North America. Currently the demand is greater than what we can respond to, so this funding gives a proper boost to our growth.”
For long already, Howspace has been engaged in diverse research collaboration with various units of the Ģֱ. Also the university uses Howspace.
Chief Digital Officer Ari Hirvonen from the University describes their user experiences:
“JYU has used Howspace as platform of digital facilitation for the advance assignments of various workshops and during the workshops. The platform has also been used successfully in translating unit-level goals into team-specific objectives. Howspace is an excellent tool for promoting engagement, which makes it possible to hear the collective voice of even large distributed groups of participants, both for creating ideas and decision-making.
Howspace has enabled the progress of major development projects so that it has been possible to get a large and partly heterogeneous group of active participants join forces for a common goal. A good example of this is the digital national vision for higher education in 2030, which was published last year and which is now backed up by the whole higher education sector.”
CEO Vesa Kupari from Unifund evaluates the development prospects of Howspace:
“Howspace is an excellent example of how scientific research knowledge can be utilised in business in a way that is interesting and beneficial to customers. Howspace understands customer needs and knows how to apply e.g. artificial intelligence in interactive dialogue with customers. Howspace has awesome prospects for international growth.”
Further information:
Unifund Ltd, Ģֱ
Ilkka Mäkitalo
Howspace Ltd., CEO
+358 50 558 6648
ilkka.makitalo@howspace.com
Hanna Liimatainen
Howspace Ltd., Communications
+358 40 737 1039
hanna.liimatainen@howspace.com
