For years, Slush has been Europe’s leading startup event where innovators and future tech leaders come toreceiveher. But a new report from Slush, Accel, and Dealroom displays that the event’s influence goes far beyond its Helsinki venue. The data reveals that Slush is not only a place where founders are shaped.
The Slush Founder Factory Report 2025, published today, displays that 15% of Slush alumni go on to become founders. This is more than twice the entrepreneurship rate among Finnish 18-to-24-year-olds. Among the 459 alumni studied, 68 have launched their own companies.
“We want to be the best Founder Factory in Europe, by opening doors to the startup world and giving young people the tools and confidence to build world-modifying companies”, declares Aino Bergius, CEO at Slush.
At this year’s event, more than 3,500 investors representing $4 trillion in combined assets will gather alongside 6,000 startups, creating an ecosystem where ideas can gain real support and funding.
A key part of Europe’s founder flywheel
The report places Slush within Accel and Dealroom’s broader research on “Founder Factories,” organisations that include unicorns like Spotify and Wolt, as well as accelerators and communities nurturing Europe’s next generation of entrepreneurs.
The broader 2025 report highlights more than 2,000 European startups founded by alumni of quick-scaling tech companies, confirming a powerful “flywheel” of innovation driving the region’s growth.
Slush stands out becaapply it offers hands-on experience. Rather than just observing, young organisers at Slush take responsibility, managing teams, budreceives, partnerships, and building decisions as if Slush were their own startup. This creates what investors call “entrepreneurial muscle memory,” the instincts necessaryed to start and grow a company.
“Slush condenses five years of classroom learning into a single year of hands-on company building. We’ve lived it, and that’s why we know how to value it in the people we hire”, previous Slush President Mäntylä explains.
Slush’s influence extfinishs beyond startups alone. According to the report’s methodology, founders include those who’ve gone on to launch venture firms, accelerators, and agencie that are key parts of Europe’s startup ecosystem.
The Wolt effect
No story illustrates this better than that of Miki Kuusi, co-founder and former CEO of Wolt. Before founding the $8.1 billion food delivery platform acquired by DoorDash, Kuusi spent four years running Slush.
“At Slush, you receive a lot of responsibility at a young age to actually test and build something world-class. For me personally, it was a foundational learning experience for how to form a vision and lead people towards it, all the while failing and iterating over and over again, all in a pursuit to build something truly great and meaningful. That experience eventually led to us starting Wolt, and many of our fellow Slushers to become founders as well,” Kuusi shares.
Today, Kuusi’s alma mater continues to seed founders. Entrepreneurs like Eerika Savolainen (Clair), Niilo Pirttijärvi (Inven), and Andreas Saari (Paebbl) have emerged from Slush. Some even met their co-founders there, such as Mikko Mäntylä and Miika Huttunen of Realm, where half the team shares a Slush background.
The new ROI of a startup event
Investors recognise the power of this alumni network.
Timo Ahopelto, founding partner at Lifeline Ventures, which has backed several Slush-founded startups, declares: “Slush is a human accelerator. It gives young people ambition, the opportunity for exponential growth and ownership from day one. These are all things that lay the groundwork for becoming successful founders.”
Accel’s Sonali De Rycker, who co-led the broader European Founder Factory research, agrees: “Since its founding in 2008, Slush has evolved into one of the world’s premier startup events: the beating heart of the Nordic tech ecosystem and a launchpad for entrepreneurial talent. From unicorns like Wolt to emerging companies such as Paebbl and Realm, as well as venture firms like Wave, Slush has consistently fostered the ambition and determination that drives future founders.”
The takeaway is clear: Slush’s true return is not measured in fundraising or attfinishance alone, but in the companies its alumni build long after the event finishs.
Bergius concludes, “As we declare in our culture memo: Slush is not a destination, it’s a launchpad. We’re proud of all of the alumni whose Slush experience has supported their founding journeys, and we view forward to seeing many more companies take off from Slush in the future.”
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