Back to About

Our journey

At the turn of the millennium, our founders set their own rules and built Futurice as a company where culture is key – and the rest, as they say, is history. Join us for a trip down memory lane and scroll through the timeline to see how it all began, and how we've been doing things differently for over two decades.

2000 to 2006

The early start-up and product house years

Futurice was founded to create an amazing place to work, right when the dot-com bubble was about to burst. There was a lot of loose cash around for almost anyone who could come up with a sufficiently outrageous business idea, but Futurice took a different approach: to develop products that had a real draw in the market. In our case, they were imaging products, small applications and bespoke agile software development for clients.

2000

Founded in Helsinki, Finland.Started out developing imaging products and small applications.First CEO: Markku TaulamoHeadcount: 5

2001

Established a long-lasting partnership with Nokia.

2003

Built hit B2C imaging service Kuvaboxi. Possibly the world’s first mobile app for uploading photos from early smartphones to the "cloud".

2004

Filed a patent for tagging people on photos and sharing photos based on that metadata.

2007 to 2009

Transformation into a tech consultancy

Having found our calling in consultancy work, we focused exclusively on that side of our business and sold off our product functions. This change came hand in hand with switching our official language to English and opening a new office in Tampere. With Nokia as our largest client, we bet heavily on a mobile future and expanded our focus to cover both tech and design.

2007

Sold the Kuvaboxi product business and became a 100% consultancy.Changed the official company language to English.Headcount: 40

2008

Adjusted consultancy focus to cover both technology and design.Largest client: Nokia.Opened a new office in Tampere, Finland.Tuomas Syrjänen appointed as new CEO.Ranked #1 on Deloitte Fast 50. We made the list for the next 10+ years.

2009

Bet on a mobile future.

2010 to 2015

International growth and expertise expansion

Driven by our growing international ambition and as well as the practical needs of our largest client Nokia, we opened our first German office in Berlin. Over the coming years, the business with Nokia began to decline, motivating us to systematically broaden our client base across several sectors. As Futurice grew into an innovation and engineering company capable of strategic partnerships and end-to-end services, the outside world also took note of our unique culture and way of doing things.

2010

International expansion starts in Berlin, driven by projects with Nokia and others.Started out working from local cafés.Headcount: 115

2012

Achieved the first of two consecutive number one positions on Great Place to Work’s list for SMEs in Europe.Opened our London office.

2013

CEO Tuomas Syrjänen was chosen as leader of the year by Finnish business magazine Fakta, based on Futurice’s unique culture.

2014

Launched the employee-initiated Spice Program, paying people for open source contributions in their free time.

2015

Helsinki office moved to downtown Helsinki.

2016 to 2020

Investigating what shapes the future might take

Our expansion shifted into a higher gear with new international offices as well as Futurice Family companies, a network of subsidiaries and spinoffs with a specialty focus. We made an explicit and early bet on the importance of data and artificial intelligence in the future of all work and business. Our exploration into cutting-edge technologies ramped up, as did our efforts to find effective ways to have a real impact on the world and people, both inside and outside Futurice.

2016

Launched the employee-driven Chilicorn Fund, an open-source social responsibility initiative.Opened new offices in Stockholm and Munich.Introduced the first Futurice Family company, Columbia Road.Headcount: 375

2017

Groundbreaking facial recognition pilot at Helsinki Airport with Finnair and Finavia.

2018

Made a bet on AI and data as the next game changer.Teemu Moisala appointed CEO with former CEO Tuomas Syrjänen moving to head new AI initiatives.Opened a new office in Oslo (closed in 2021).Launched two new Futurice Family companies, Aito.ai and Thriv (initially known as Tentimes)

2019

Opened a new office in Stuttgart.Berlin and Munich offices moved.

2020

Founded a new Futurice Family company, Meltlake.Tenacity of company culture tested by the global pandemic.

2021 and beyond

The journey continues

World events continued to put our and our clients’ resilience to the test, both as people and as a company. We passed, but much work remains on building a digital future for our people, clients and the world. We continue on our journey towards becoming a company focused on a positive and measurable impact.

Blog header picture for news post about Recordly

2021

Simo Leisti appointed CEO.Launched a new Futurice Family company, Recordly.Stockholm office moved.Headcount: 650

2022

Helsinki office moved.New satellite office established in Freiburg.

2023 and beyond

Let’s find out together.

Get our finest content to your inbox each month

FutuConnect is our monthly selection of recent and relevant blog posts, articles and other content from Futurice – curated with love and care, delivered monthly to your inbox.

Sign up today