Summer Bloom 2026: A Big Success
The Summer Bloom pre-incubator program is the premier program of the University of Vaasa, together with the Hanken School of Economics. It runs during the summer, trying to bring entrepreneurship closer to the students of the six universities in Vaasa. This year we had 100+ applications and held over 80 in-person interviews, which resulted in accepting 47 students into the program. This increase of nearly 30 additional students was made possible by the generous donation of Lähitapiola to the University of Vaasa earlier this spring.
During the first week, the students got to know each other. We had guided and unguided exercises to help the students find teams, and we closed out the week with a visit from Sitra, where the students learned about problems worth solving. Summer Bloom also often involves guests - this year we had students from University on Chapel Hill (North Carolina, USA) visting the VSF. During their visit the UNC students sparred and discussed ideas and problem areas with the Summer Bloom Participants.
Over the next three weeks, the newly formed teams figured out the problems they wanted to work on and continued down that road. In week four, they were pitching to a panel with panelists from the city of Vaasa, angel investors, and different members of staff from the universities in Vaasa. After that, 34 students continued with the €800 stipend into the second part of the program.
During the final five weeks, the teams made leaps and bounds in validating their problems, speaking with potential clients, even negotiating letters of intent with potential clients, and in one case even establishing a company.
Also, as a first this year, Riccardo Notarangelo and Hendrik Morkel were supported by three interns, which made handling the increased number of students a lot easier for the two of them. The interns did spectacular work producing weekly videos for the Vaasa Startup Factory's social media channels on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok, as well as creating social activities for the participating students.
Summer Bloom was also recognized by local media, and student teams appeared in Vaasa Lehti and Vasabladet. Before the program kicked off, there was also a TV segment about it on National TV.
Summer Bloom 2026 culminated on 8 August, when the remaining 10 teams pitched at the University of Vaasa's auditorium, full of interested people, and again with an illustrious panel on stage: venture capitalists, the city of Vaasa, and members of student organizations. Every team had a great pitch, but in the end only one could win, and the team FRSHNearby, which is trying to solve the problem of getting locally produced food into the hands of customers in an easy and convenient way, took it. They will be travelling to SLUSH in Helsinki this November.
All involved actors, from the universities to the city of Vaasa and local startup players, were very satisfied with the outcome of this year's Summer Bloom program, and we are already setting our sights on the 2027 iteration, when we hope to make it even better and bigger. While Summer Bloom is over, several of the teams are competing in the Next Level Growth Challenge on the 28th of August, so if you are curious to see them pitch, sign up for free for this event.
