Builders' Breakfast with Jarna Hyvönen: How to Sell Deep Tech Before It Exists, Lessons from Volare

​How do you convince customers to buy a product that doesn't exist yet, from a factory that hasn't even been built?

That's exactly the challenge Jarna Hyvönen and the team at Volare have tackled. Volare turns food industry side streams into sustainable insect protein, oil and fertiliser raw materials. But taking deep tech from the lab to industrial production requires much more than developing groundbreaking technology.

​Volare has secured €26 million in financing, signed offtake agreements with customers before its factory was built, and has now opened its new production facility in Pori. Getting there meant proving that the technology worked, convincing customers to commit to something that didn't yet exist at scale, and bringing together the commercial agreements and financing needed to make the factory a reality.

​The journey has also been about bridging the gap between the lab and industrial production. Volare built a demonstration facility just nine months after the company was founded, giving the team a way to test its process at a larger scale and work with real customers. Along the way, Jarna has learnt the importance of involving customers early, finding people within larger organisations who believe in your solution, and communicating a credible vision of the future.

​At this Builders' Breakfast, Jarna will share how Volare went from lab to factory, winning customers and proving demand before scaling up production. We'll explore what it really takes to sell something that doesn't exist yet, secure the financing to bring it to life, and turn promising deep tech into a commercially viable business.