The concept's founding father has a close relationship with the world of online videos through his own personal challenges.

"I'm dyslexic and I've learned everything through videos. When I wanted to understand how start-ups work, I watched Stanford University lectures on YouTube."

"I haven't read a single book in my life."

Still, Aviv Junno underwent a special training as part of his service in the Israeli army, then set up his first company in Helsinki – which failed, stopped by New York to help his friend boost their start-up business, came back to Helsinki, and then met with Oskari Kettunen of Reaktor Ventures who invested in the creation of Junno’s new company Neverthink. Kettunen soon became Neverthink's co-founder and COO.

Every transplant to Helsinki needs an Oskari of their own

"The Finns may be slightly reserved when it comes to meeting new people. This is also true in the capital region's start-up community, which revolves strongly around Slush and Aalto University", Junno thinks.

"I've said it before – every transplant to Helsinki needs an Oskari of their own."

The culture of networking that is so emblematic of the start-up scene also rings true in Helsinki: to meet the right people you need to be recommended by the right people, who will gladly introduce you if your idea is good. Aviv Junno has now also joined the ranks of the match-makers and is happy to connect fresh faces in Helsinki.

"Every Israeli who heads to Helsinki comes to say hi to me first."

Regardless of its Helsinki identity – or perhaps partly because of it – Neverthink has become a success in its three years of existence. The start-up's logo has graced Apple's keynote events as a video partner and it has won two awards from Google in its app galas.

Business Finland is our biggest individual funder

The company has done well in attracting investment. Neverthink's venture capital rounds have raised three million euros and Business Finland has backed the project with almost the same sum. Business Finland is a state-owned funding agency that serves to accelerate innovations through different funding instruments.

"Business Finland is our biggest individual funder."

"Founding a company and racking up the initial capital is really easy in Finland. A good idea can easily get 50,000 euros from Business Finland. But a trickier story is then to grow into a company worth a billion. People are not hungry enough because everyone lives so well around here compared to, for instance, Israel, where rich people live like the Finnish middle class," Junno ponders.

A non-Finnish entrepreneur is also eligible to apply for funding from Business Finland if the business plan comes across as sensible and realistic, the company has a Finnish business ID, and its activities and a sufficient part of its staff are in Finland. The nationality of the founders plays no role and all Finnish companies are treated as equal.

An Israeli start-up entrepreneur gets hooked on a small Nordic capital