Saari invests in real estate growth rocket Bo LKV

Saari Partners Press Release 04.10.2019

Aboa Advest is an investor in Saari I private equity fund

Saari I, managed by Saari Partners, acquires 52% of Bo LKV to become the new majority owner. Bo is one of Finland’s most successful real estate brokerages, with more than 100% growth and €15M revenue in 2018. 

All four founders remain owners of the company. Anna Ritakallio-Mäkelä and Tuomas Mäkelä continue as significant minority shareholders, Sirena and Anssi Kiviranta as minority shareholders. Matias Von Schantz, Linda Kukkonen and Patrick Frisk from Helsinki, as well as Managing Director Tuomo Räsänen join as new minority shareholders.

“This felt like the right moment to diversify the ownership, bring in new ideas to Bo’s board, and also secure financing availability to realize new growth opportunities,” Anna Mäkelä says.

“To us founders, Bo is a passion and a family member,” says Tuomas Mäkelä. “We want to continue our hard work to achieve growth and development, and now we have an even better foundation to stand on” he adds. “Saari became our first choice both because of our shared values and the good cultural fit, as well as because of Saari’s team’s hands-on experience in working with growth companies like our’s.”

Bo operates in ten geographical growth centers within Finland and has shown close to 70% growth YTD 2019. The company aims to close this year with over €24M in revenue and take the place as the third biggest brokerage in the country.

“We have a really exceptional company culture and good compensation models, and these have been our most important drivers to attract a large number of experienced and talented brokers to our company,” says Managing Director Tuomo Räsänen. “Bo’s service concept combines excellent personal service with smart digital capabilities. The visuals are especially important to us: all properties are styled by Bo’s interior designers, and then professionally photographed, to produce magazine quality images. We are active in the social media sphere and also probably the only player in the industry to publish a high-quality interior design magazine”.

“Bo’s story has really been quite extraordinary. We see an interesting transformation taking place in the living and housing markets, with new opportunities for forward-looking companies to produce innovative services for consumers as well as real estate brokers,” says Mia Sirkiä, one of the partners of Saari Partners.

“When we are talking about the most important decisions in one’s life, we believe that professional, experienced real estate agents equipped with great digital tools will produce the best end results: good prices and short sales times”, says Mikael Lönnroth of Saari.  “Bo has shown tremendous growth in a short time, and we are honoured and happy to join Bo’s inspiring family to take their success story further,” he concludes.

For more information:

Tuomo Räsänen, Bo LKV, p. +358 407182840

Mia Sirkiä, Saari Partners, p. +358 408600240

Aboa Advest at The Shift Business Festival 29-30th August

The SHIFT Business Festival is attracting a record number of participants this year. The venue for SHIFT 2019 is the Ruissalo Shipyard in the picturesque archipelago of Turku, Finland.  Jenny and Ville are representing Aboa Advest at the event with Timo, who will be a member of the Investor Pit panel on Thursday 29th August at 7 pm.

On Thursday 29th August at 5 pm we are organising the roundtable for Nordic collaboration in Tech industries, initiated by Markus Blomquist and Anna-Karin Tötterman, the co-founders of Nordic Enterprise Network. Timo will be moderating the roundtable discussion with exciting participants from different fields of business and with different perspectives on collaboration:

• Piia Maaranen, CEO, Avanto Ventures (collaboration between startups and big companies)
• Johan Slotte, Deputy CEO, Teleste (Smart, Safe and Smooth cities in Finland and internationally)
• Mika Paananen, Chief Customer Officer, Veritas Pension Insurance Company (collaboration for wellbeing at work)
• Mikael Lönnroth, Founding Partner, Saari Parners (digital business models for SME’s)
• Pekka Siivonen-Uotila, Partner, Nordic FoodTech VC (the need for new food and FoodTech)
• Toni Perämäki, COO, Valohai (ai infrastructure and collaboration in Tech industries in an international perspective)
• Timo Ketonen, Entpreneur and angel investor as moderator (entrepreneurship and impact investing in startups and growth companies)

Welcome to join us at The Shift  

Successful crowdfunding brings Oceanvolt 2M€

Aboa Advest participated in the crowdfunding campaign arranged by Invesdor and Timo acted as an advisor to Oceanvolt management.

Below is Oceanvolt’s message to the new shareholders following the successful round.

The Oceanvolt crowdfunding campaign on Invesdor’s site closed on 27th June 6 hours before the deadline when the maximum 2 million € was reached. We are overwhelmed about the fantastic interest in investing in Oceanvolt from people and organisations from 37 counties. To our more than 500 new shareholders we say welcome and thank you for believing in Oceanvolt!