Sitra (Finnish Innovation Fund)

Funds Finland's innovation capacity through strategic programmes that support economic growth and public value creation.

Sitra is Finland's parliamentary public foundation, established in 1967 to support stable development, economic growth, and international competitiveness. It operates from a EUR 1.04 billion endowment and works through foresight, social innovation, and project financing rather than ministerial grant administration.

Since 2025 it has leaned more heavily into open competitive calls for municipalities, wellbeing service counties, companies, NGOs, universities, research institutes, and other registered organisations. Its current routes include the Public Sector Productivity programme, a municipal nature-and-health call capped at EUR 150,000, and a mental-crisis-resilience call capped at EUR 100,000.

Sitra is best read as a policy-oriented funder that backs experiments with public value, especially where a project can be tested quickly and then scaled through public or civic institutions. Its calls are usually framed around measurable public value, not open-ended experimentation. It no longer makes direct corporate equity investments, so founders should treat it as a grant and programme partner rather than an investor.