Industrial Committee’s visit to Bluefors: Amazing global high-tech company in Pitäjänmäki

Bluefors is founded in 2008. Today it generates over 100 million in revenue and has 300 employees of over 40 different nationalities. The company is international also in terms of export, 95% of its manufacturing is exported. Bluefors is an ideal example of an R&D-based international company that is needed in Finland to build success and prosperity.

Our visit was hosted by Chief Technology Officer David Gunnarsson accompanied by one of the founders Pieter Vorselman, Brand Manager Ingela Waismaa, R&D Engineer Matti Manninen, Director of R&D and Engineering Matias Roos, and CPO Tauno Knuuttila.

Bluefors was born in Finland from the idea of the founders, Rob Blaauwgeers and Pieter Vorselman, who developed an outstanding system redesign for low temperatures for laboratory and R&D environments in a reliable and scalable way. As Bluefors states: Cool for Progress and Cryogenics make quantum a possibility.

Is it just purely coincidentally that Bluefors has been able to succeed in Finland? Of course, in addition, to the founders’ inventiveness, great success needs always a bit of some luck. However, the fact is that cryogenics has been a strong area in Finland, a genuine hub of knowledge to which the company has been able to lean from the very beginning. In addition, it has been of utmost importance that the owners have had a mindset to persistently grow and look for new business opportunities. Finally, in summarizing discussions it was jointly concluded that it is fundamental for any developing company it is essential to be active in R&D networks both in Finland and abroad. It is not only the financing that might result from R&D cooperation but first and foremost the access to sources of state-of-the-art knowledge.

Photo Angela Waismaa: From the left: Pekka Väyrynen (Inission Lohja), Kimmo Pöyhönen (Planmeca), Reijo Areva, Reijo (Meltex), Harto Viiala (HyXo), Matias Roos (Bluefors), Vesa Pylvänäinen (Vaisala), Markku Lahtinen (HRCC), David Gunnarsson (Bluefors), Pieter Vorselman (Bluefors), Teemu Punkka (Vallilan Takomo) and Marja-Leena Rinkineva (City of Helsinki).