Acquire information about a new Export Market

Your company has the prerequisites for international growth  

• Your company has its own product, service or business model that is at least in the idea or pilot stage.
• Your company has a credible funding plan and the prerequisites for profitable international business and growth.

You need external expertise in the internationalization process

• Your company is in the early stages of internationalization or already operates internationally and you seek to expand your operations into new areas.
• You are in need of external expertise to find out how your product, service or business model could work in a new export market. The expert service provider can be a company, a research organization, an information dissemination organization or an expert (an individual). The service provider can also be from abroad.
• The costs may also include the salary costs of international business experts who are the company's own employees. However, we do not finance projects whose costs consist exclusively of the salaries of the company’s own staff and services purchased from other companies of the group.

Your company is a over 5 years old small or medium-sized enterprise or a midcap company

• Small or medium-sized enterprise: less than 250 employees, maximum turnover of 50 million euros or an annual balance sheet not exceeding 43 million euros.
• Midcap company: maximum corporate turnover of 300 million euros.
• The company must have been in operation for more than five years before the funding application is submitted. The age is calculated from the date of registration in the Trade Register.
• Your company must be a limited company.
• If your company is less than 5 years old and a small one by EU-definition, check out the Tempo financing service. If your 5-year-old company is a medium-sized or midcap company that continues the business of another company, contact BF's customer service. We will be happy to discuss the suitability of Market Explorer in this special case.

Committed team

• We do not fund single-person businesses.
• A minimum team consists of, for example, one full-time person and two part-time persons in Finland.

• Preparing an internationalization plan and strategy and developing export customer processes.
• Validation of the product's competitive advantage and value proposition in the target market.
• Survey of business opportunities.
• Preconceptualization.
• Market survey of an existing product in a new market.
• Survey of localization needs.
• Test marketing to collect information required for market survey
• Purchased services related to test marketing can be accepted as project costs provided that the test marketing is clearly delimited: you must have defined target markets and customer groups before the start of test marketing, and the maximum duration of test marketing is two months.
• Furthermore, a project that entails test marketing must always include the purchase of an expert service that produces added value.
• Market analyses and survey of the competitive situation.
• Mapping and analyzing sales channels and partners and developing the key activities and management processes of export operations.
• Examination of legal and standards requirements, and analysis of international product protection for existing products.
• Product development, which is prerequisite in order to create the solution that is needed in obtaining customer feedback.

What the funding cannot be used for

• You cannot use Market Explorer funding for costs related to testing or applying for or expanding marking and product protection.
• Market Explorer funding is not granted to businesses that are not eligible for de minimis funding (primary production of agriculture, fishery and aquaculture).
• Furthermore, Market Explorer funding is not granted to resale companies: your company must have its own product or service offering.
• Costs related to production, advertising, marketing or sales, such as travel, brochures or advertising expenses are ineligible.

Find a suitable service provider

• In the application stage, you must have a preliminary idea of the service provider from which your company will purchase expert services.
• You may change the service provider during the project if it is necessary in order to achieve your goal.
• Market Explorer funding cannot be used for purchasing services from a provider associated with your company through, for example, ownership, membership of the board of directors or family relationship. Services purchased within the same Group will be accepted as invoiced.   

Search for international market experts through our Expert Search service

Ensure sufficient self-financing

• Market Explorer funding is an aid that will be paid to your company retrospectively, on the basis of the actual costs reported.
• Your company must have sufficient financing of its own for the realization of the project. Sufficient financing means that your company can cover the total costs of the project by itself, prior to receiving funding from Business Finland.

Cash flow forecast

General requirements for financing

Business Finland will not grant funding if:

• the company has arrears, payment defaults or other outstanding financial obligations related to previous loans granted by Tekes or Business Finland
• the company has not submitted its financial statements to the Finnish Patent and Registration Office in accordance with the Limited Liability Companies Act
• the company's financial statements have not been audited in accordance with the Auditing Act
• the company is not in the prepayment register
• according to the Finnish Tax Administration, the company has overdue taxes or payments for which a payment plan has not been agreed upon
• the company has neglected registration, notification or payment obligations related to other statutory obligations.

Check de minimis funding

Market Explorer funding is de minimis aid. Your company can receive de minimis funding no more than EUR 300,000 over any period of three years.

The company must assess, at the application stage, how much de minimis funding it has received in the previous years. Companies belonging to the same group or controlled by the same party (for example, same majority owner) are considered one company. Such aid is granted by a range of public organizations, such as Finnvera and the ELY Centers.

Read more about de minimis aid

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

The funding terms and conditions describe the costs that Business Finland can fund, how we monitor your project costs, and how you should report on the progress of your project.

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

Send your application and attachments via our online service. You can also keep track of the processing of your application in the online service.

Go to the online service

Set your project targets

In the application form, you will be asked to set 2–5 measurable targets for your project. The targets must be related to the concrete outcomes of the project and the development of your company's business. The project targets will be recorded in the funding decision and Business Finland will monitor their completion. The accomplishment of the targets has a significant impact when applying for potential follow-on financing from Business Finland.

Please describe the targets in the form "outcomes of the project upon its completion".

Examples of project targets:

• collected and gained information about a new market/customer group and the suitability of the product or service there
• surveyed the product's localization needs in the new market
• surveyed the legal requirements for entering the new market
• surveyed other issues regarding advancement in the new international market
• identified x potential collaboration partners
• identified x potential customers or customer groups

Project Plan

As a part of your application, we will ask you to submit a project plan. You can either type your plan in the application form, in the field ("Project realization: Please describe the intended use of the funding you are applying for") or attach it to the application in a separate file. If you do not already have a project plan, you can use the project plan template.

Please detail at least the following items in your project plan:

• Your company's own product or service
• Your company's vision and the role of the Market Explorer project in the accomplishment of the vision
• Your project's target country/countries. Please describe whether the surveyed market is new to your company or whether it has already been surveyed through a previous project
• The project realization, resources and schedule
  • targets
  • service provider (if chosen before submitting the application)
  • what the already selected or later selected service provider will do within the project
  • whether the project is going to entail test marketing and how it has been delimited
  • schedule
• Next steps: what will be done after the completion of the project, how your company is going to take advantage of the project outcomes

Information about the company finances

Attach an income statement no more than two months old and a balance sheet from the current financial period with your Market Explorer application.

Eligible costs

Business Finland can accept costs starting from the date the application was submitted, at the earliest.

Eligible costs within a Market Explorer are:

Salaries

Indirect personnel costs
30% of the salaries paid will be accepted as indirect personnel costs.

Purchased services

Expert services related to exporting your product, service or business model to a new international market.
The division of costs into purchased services and salaries has not been defined.. The work of the company's own staff and the expert services to be purchased must form a purposeful and credible whole that promotes the company's international growth.
Services purchased within the same Group will be accepted as invoiced. Purchases from other associated companies are not considered acceptable costs.

Purchased services unrelated to the creation of capacity required in international operations cannot be accepted as project costs, for example

• general business consulting services
• operational sales and marketing services (for example, translation services and creation of website)
• staff training

Other costs
Other costs will be accepted up to the amount of 20 per cent of the amount of purchased services and salaries. Other costs do not need to be itemised.