Our Story
Our two founding hypotheses:
1. The archipelago is a place for collaboration
In a post-pandemic world shaped by hybrid work, teams need environments that combine focus, creativity, and nature. The archipelago offers a unique setting for this.
2. The archipelago is a place for future solutions
Regenerative business requires real-world environments for testing and learning. The archipelago acts as a living lab for solutions that can scale globally.
The journey begins
A’Pelago was founded in 2022 with a view to create more innovations and entrepreneurship with impact to the unique shallow Finnish archipelago sea region by Patrik Anckar and Timo Ketonen.
Now eight years in a row, Finland has been ranked No.1 as the happiest country in the world, according to the World Happiness Report. At the same time, the sea around Finland was and is one of the most polluted seas in the world and the biodiversity and habitability of the areas is challenged. Hence, the shallow Archipelago Sea Region in Finland was identified as a sweet spot for A'Pelago operations.
The 1st solutions: remotework locations and the A'Pelago Initiative
Based on these hypotheses our first service was, a platform for the booking of coworking facilities in the archipelago in Southwest Finland in January 2023. At the start 12 venues joined the platform with locations in the Archipelago Sea Region and Åland Islands. Today there are 15 venues including the A'Pelago Yacht. As of now, selected A’Pelago venues are available for booking on Spacent’s platform.
The second service we launched in 2023 was the A’Pelago Initiative – a series of business events for engagement, dialogue, exchange of ideas and unexpected connections that contribute to the development of the Archipelago Sea Region. The purpose of the events was and still is to generate new business ideas and concepts with a local anchorage by bringing together business leaders, researchers, investors and other influencers as well as local entrepreneurs.
The 1st A’Pelago Initiative, held at the Archipelago Centre in Korpoström in August 2023, was a success. We were able to attract 162 ambitious and smart attendees to the event from 8 countries including 21 high-level speakers and 8 startups with concrete solutions for the Archipelago Sea Region, which were evaluated by Private Equity and Venture Capital investors.
As a consequence of the feedback received, we reached a conclusion: there's a roaring need for more ambitious sea region impact innovations, business initiatives and financing that restore the vitality of sea regions. It also became clear that sea region impact innovations in the most polluted shallow sea regions of Finland, have potential to scale up to what is called Blue Economy. The dynamic atmosphere at A'Pelago offer people the opportunity to learn, discuss and collaborate on how to build financially sustainable sea-region impact businesses.
First Accelerator, joining forces with a global Blue economy community and strengthening the A'Pelago Crew
At the dinner of the 1st Initiative event Inka Mero, the Founder & Managing Partner at Voima Ventures suggested that "as you love the sea so much, you should start a specific Accelerator program for this purpose": Right away, we rolled up our sleeves and introduced the one the first Blue economy Accelerator program in Finland in 2024.
The program provides advisory to catalyse growth and builds a large network of marine and sustainable business professionals, researchers and investors for participants. The 1st program was joined by ten Archipelago Sea region impact startups and as a result of the program we helped create 3 new startups in regenerative business (Nexamass, Ruoco and Subdrone), The program was extremely well-received and gained a score of 4.7/5 from participants and coaches.
In the autumn of 2024, A'Pelago joined forces with the global 1000 Ocean Startups coalition . The 1000 Ocean Startups coalition unites the global ecosystem of incubators, accelerators, competitions, matching platforms and venture capital & corporate venture capital firms supporting startups for ocean impact
The collaboration was an important milestone in strengthening the unique A'Pelago Blue innovation ecosystem with 49 global Blue economy enterprises, investors and universities. In September 2024 the A'Pelago team grew from 3 to 4 as a seasoned event production professional Sini Toivonen joined our team.
Building the Blue Economy ecosystem together: Launch of the Blue Connect platform
In 2025, A’Pelago entered a new phase of growth. What started as a regional movement in the Archipelago Sea had now evolved into a Nordic engine for Blue Economy innovation. The year marked the launch of new platforms, new programs, and new spaces for collaboration. In february, Matilda Gustafsson joined the team as the new lead for Marketing and Communications. With her arrival, the A’Pelago core team grew to five people.
In February 2025, during the Blue Connect Cruise, we launched the Blue Connect ecosystem platform. The cruise brought together entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, and policymakers for an intensive 24-hour innovation journey at sea. Blue Connect now serves as the digital backbone of our community.
Following the success of the first cohort, we launched the 2nd A’Pelago Accelerator, bringing together another group of 14 ambitious Blue Economy startups.
The program continued to focus on hands-on advisory, scientific and business expertise, and access to a growing global network. Together, we strengthened pathways for scalable solutions emerging from one of the world’s most sensitive and innovation-ready sea regions.
In 2025 we founded the A’Pelago Blue Economy Academy, designed for students eager to understand and shape the future of sustainable marine industries. Another major milestone was the launch of the Blue Economy Centre in Turku, the first hub of its kind in the region. The centre provides a physical space for startups, researchers, corporates, and public sector actors to collaborate, prototype, and develop solutions that contribute to the regeneration and sustainable development of coastal and island areas.
The A’Pelago Initiative continued to grow into the leading Blue Economy forum in the Baltic Sea region. The 2025 edition introduced a new Pitch Challenge, showcasing breakthrough solutions to investors, industry leaders, and the broader ecosystem. The Initiative once again proved the power of bringing diverse actors together to accelerate innovation for the sea.
Team
founders
core team
We are a small team, however, thanks to 'sisu'-spirit and our network of business coaches, researchers, local entrepreneurs, Venture Capital funds and other investors we are able to do a lot to speed up the impact for sea regions.