Evergreenwalls was founded in 2020 by brothers Axel Ackermann and Cajus Ackermann in Otaniemi, a district in the Greater Helsinki area of Finland that is known as a research and development hub.

The Ackermann brothers study medicine at the University of Helsinki, in addition to which they have supplemented their skills by studying information and service management as well as industrial engineering and management at Aalto University. In 2020, they participated in the University of Helsinki’s HELSEED entrepreneurship programme, obtaining a €30,000 investment from the University of Helsinki for their business Evergreen Viherseinät Oy.

The company provides automated farming systems for local food production for businesses and households, which promote abundant yields and serve as part of the everyday surroundings.

Making sure that food production is sustainable and environmentally friendly is getting more and more important nowadays. Food waste is a huge problem and around 40% of all fresh produce is wasted before reaching the consumer.

According to some estimates, global food production creates approximately 17.3 billion metric tons of carbon emissions every year, which is one-third of the global total.

So, we need companies like Evergreenwalls that are focused on changing the food production value chain and providing more eco-friendly farming solutions.

A team made up of two visionary brothers

Evergreenwalls offers quality products with little to no maintenance while reducing food waste and packaging.

Now their products allow people to grow crops using less water and no need for pesticides or other chemicals with 2-3 times faster growth rate than traditional methods. At the same time, this eliminates the need to transport food from long distances since it is locally grown food.

While they have designed and manufactured products that make so many things possible, they have done it only with a tiny team. Their team mainly consists of two founding members, Axel and Cajus Ackermann, as well as two business advisors who are involved in operational activities such as sales and marketing.

Aside from the external labour they use to install the products and carry out maintenance visits, this is their team.

Their collaboration with Helsinki and the future of the company

Mainly because of their interest in entrepreneurship and because they wanted to solve the problems of urban food production, the Ackermann brothers have started Evergreenwalls. Now they are offering people the possibility to properly be self-sufficient in terms of growing herbs and salads easily as local food.

With aims to achieve more, Evergreenwalls has joined the Urban Tech Helsinki program, where its team has been able to have more elements to support the growth of their company.

In the program, they have received a lot of help from Aalto Startup Center‘s mentors in various areas and had more access to better networking possibilities. Since they have managed to take the company forward commercially, they are planning to continue within the Urban Tech Helsinki program for the next two years.

For 2022, Evergreenwalls plans to fully focus on sales and other marketing activities and continue the year with its existing partners and investors. And in the long run, the company wants to provide new alternatives to grow food and reshape the wasteful supply chain in order to build a more sustainable future.

This article is done in collaboration with ArcticStartup.