5.7.2021

Back to the Future

We are coming out of the pandemic, but the world is not the same. These exceptional months have permanently altered business. They have accelerated digitalisation and the green transition. They have irreversibly changed human behaviour and the way we work. They have polarised the business world into winners and losers. Global economic stimulus has reached a scale that has never been seen before, and no-one knows where this will ultimately lead.

These are not the only big changes in the air. The crisis of the pandemic highlighted the role of business owners and boards of directors, but that role has been changing for other reasons, too. The way that companies create value is changing rapidly. Steering the value of a company can no longer be successfully done using short-term financial metrics, but requires owners to have more extensive expertise, vision and an understanding of the times. Companies are expected to act sustainably, and success is more and more linked to how well a company pays attention to its stakeholders.

Stakeholder thinking is nothing new, but combined with sustainability, it forms a new kind of attitude to the basic purpose of a company: if society as a whole is considered a stakeholder, this can lead to a sustainable and responsible business. Good profits alone are no longer enough, as investors, customers, legislators and even courts demand that business owners act sustainably. If a company does not act itself in time, it might be forced to act in a way dictated by outside forces.

The market economy is once again shedding its skin and guiding companies towards change. It is important for companies to better understand their internal and external stakeholders and seek to meet their needs. As things stand, few companies are able to identify and anticipate the impacts of sustainability requirements and create added value for new stakeholder groups.

One thing remains unchanged, however. The most important task of business owners is to secure the positive development of company value. When it comes to how that value is created, however, there is no turning back. The future will call for more dialogue, new skills, vision, and above all, courage.

Latest references

We successfully represented a panel of reinsurance companies in an international ad hoc arbitration. The dispute arose out of a reinsurance treaty under the terms of which the reinsurers had reinsured a portfolio of risks underwritten by the cedent. The parties disagreed as to whether the reinsurance provided coverage for a certain loss that had occurred because of the market turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The case involved highly complex legal and contractual questions requiring special expertise on reinsurance law and practice. The arbitral tribunal rejected the counterparty’s claims for reinsurance compensation against our clients in full. The amount in dispute was approximately EUR 34 million.
Case published 16.9.2025
We supported byFounders.vc as the Finnish counsel in their investment in DataCrunch Oy in a USD 64 million Series A funding round. DataCrunch provides scalable AI compute solutions from energy-efficient data centers in Iceland and Finland. byFounders.vc is the community-powered early-stage venture fund investing in globally ambitious teams connected to the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Case published 11.9.2025
We advised Springvest Oyj in organising a EUR 45 million Series A funding round for ReOrbit, a space technology company and a leading provider of software-first satellites. It’s the largest all-equity Series A round in Finland and one of the most significant deals overall in the European space and defence sector. The purpose of the funding round is to support ReOrbit’s growth. The round consisted of a private placement reserved for professional and institutional investors, which included, e.g. Icebreaker.vc, Expansion VC, 10xFounders, Inventure VC, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, and Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company, and an EUR 8 million public share offering, which was oversubscribed within 4.5 hours. Springvest is a Finland-based investment firm that connects unlisted growth companies with investors. ReOrbit builds sovereign satellites and connected systems for national security.
Case published 9.9.2025
Castrén & Snellman advised the lead investors Ten Eleven Ventures and Tesi in the EUR 275 million Series B financing round of IQM Quantum Computers, the global leader in building quantum computers. The round is largest Series B round ever in Finland and the second largest in the Nordics. In addition to the lead investors represented by C&S, the round was participated by several new and existing investors, including pension funds Elo Mutual Pension Insurance and Varma Mutual Pension Insurance, strategic investors Companies of Schwarz Group and Winbond Electronics Corporation, and sovereign wealth funds EIC and Bayern Kapital. Ten Eleven Ventures is the original cybersecurity-focused, global, and stage-agnostic investment firm. The firm identifies, invests in, and helps grow top cybersecurity companies addressing critical digital security needs, leveraging its team, network, and experience to build successful businesses. Since its founding, Ten Eleven Ventures has raised over USD 1 billion and made over 60 cybersecurity investments across various stages worldwide. Tesi (Suomen Teollisuussijoitus Oy / Finnish Industry Investment Ltd) is a state-owned investment company with an industrial policy mission focused on driving economic growth, renewal, and investments. Tesi invests on market terms both in venture capital and private equity funds, and directly in startups, scale-ups, and large industrial projects. IQM Quantum Computers, founded as a deep tech spin-off from Aalto University in 2019, specialises in developing quantum computers utilizing superconducting circuits. The company designs and produces quantum processors at its facility in Espoo, providing computing solutions and optimizations tailored to both research and industrial applications. In addition to its Finnish operations, IQM has expanded its presence to Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States.
Case published 4.9.2025