Olivier Laiho
G3 Co-Chair, FBN Entrepreneurs Community
Oliver is a 3rd generation entrepreneur from Finland. His family is a manufacturer of water piping equipment as well as high precision cnc-machining. From the factory floor it was natural to pick-up the passion for manufacturing processes, industrial scale productions and technology.
Currently, half of the year Oliver is engaging in a mission to build the “best summer job for young people from young people”. In front of Helsinki there is a new island being developed for tourism and the entrepreneurial opportunities on the island are abundant. Oliver is building a system where young people get to take responsibility, lead and build projects in a relatively low risk and high reward environment.
The two main projects at the moment are a restaurant and a new cafe that is opening on the last day of June. During the winters when the island is not accessible he is actively exploring different possibilities to enhance the food production and consumption. He is an angel investor in a vertical farming company that’s aiming to ease the farm related pollution of the Baltic Sea by growing microgreens without fertilizer and excessive nutrients.
After studying international business and computer science in Santa Barbara, California he went to the University of Jyväskylä to study information systems sciences. While in school he founded his first company Babylonia Capital to lower the barrier for entry to the newly established crypto market. The company turned out to be the first asset management company in Finland in that sector and paved the way for Finnish crypto legislation and for new companies to enter. The same changing regulatory landscape he was helping to build ended up forcing him to close down the business.
Session
Community Lab Entrepreneurs - Unveiling the unseen: learning from and celebrating failure
Community Labs
You are about to launch or launched a new venture either outside or inside your family business. You might also be looking at investments opportunities. Key questions: how to innovate, what are the future trends, how to find the right partner and the right investment opportunities?