The daily brief: 27 June 2019

Finnish forestry tech company CollectiveCrunch has closed a 600 000-euro funding round led by Thominvest, with participation from new and existing angel investors. The Finnish startup will use the funding to launch the first commercial version of its Linda Forest AI platform, which utilises climate, geographic and customer process data to enable customers to arrive at better predictions of their forest inventory. CollectiveCrunch has now raised a total of one million euros in funding. It recently also embarked on a multi-year partnership with Finland’s Metsähallitus Forestry, which aims to improve the harvesting and forest development planning of five million hectares of forest land.

Finnish dairy company Valio has won the Best Sustainability/CSR Initiative category at the World Dairy Innovation Awards for its fully plant-based cartons. Valio turned to plant-based cartons already in 2015, and now it sells roughly 250 million fully plant-based cartons a year. The cartons are made of wood-fibre cardboard, and the plastic in the caps and lining the carton is made from plant ethanol rather than oil. The company aims to turn its milk production carbon-neutral by 2035.

Finnish construction company YIT has signed a contract worth approximately 130 million euros with Stockholm Vatten for a new wastewater tunnel in Stockholm, Sweden. The project is part of the development of Sweden’s largest wastewater treatment plant in Henriksdal. YIT is the main contractor of the project and will be responsible for tunnelling works, concrete works, rock engineering for pumping stations and the installation of pumping stations and pipelines. The main tunnel will run under the area between Bromma and Sickla in Stockholm and will be around 14 kilometres long, of which YIT will construct 7.7 kilometres.

Finland’s Konecranes will deliver an eco-efficient mobile harbour crane to the HES Gdynia Bulk Terminal in northern Poland. The crane will be used for continuous-duty bulk handling in what is one of Poland’s largest sea ports. The terminal is part of HES International, one of Europe’s primary terminal operators in dry and liquid bulk products. The crane will be handed over by the end of 2019.