Mika Laatu

Mika Laatu is the Lab Director at Grid.vc, the Finnish energy-focused venture firm, where he leads Grid.lab — the firm's platform for validating and accelerating early-stage ideas alongside its network of corporate energy partners and mentors. Grid.lab is central to Grid.vc's model: by giving startups a direct channel for feedback and collaboration with energy companies, it lets the fund analyze ideas together with potential customers and invest at earlier stages than a conventional seed fund. Laatu's role centers on building that operating model and the mentor network that supports it.

His public professional positioning, per LinkedIn, is as a Senior Advisor with an HHJ designation (Finland's "Hyväksytty Hallituksen Jäsen" / Approved Board Member certification) and a stated focus on electric vehicles (EV) and energy solutions — areas closely aligned with the energy transition that Grid.vc backs. He is an active public voice on the topic; commenting on Grid.vc's investor announcements he has written that "the energy transition requires new kinds of action" and described Grid.vc as "an excellent tool for probing the energy future and identifying new business opportunities."

Grid.vc itself was launched by Finnish utility Leppäkosken Sähkö in 2019 to enable corporate partners to co-invest in and support energy startups. The firm now manages the Grid.vc I Ky fund (roughly €3 million in assets under management) backed by a syndicate of Finnish corporate/utility investors including the Leppäkoski Group, Sallilan Energia, Ensto, and Keuruun Sähkö. Day-to-day fund management is led by Managing Director Jussi Teijonsalo and Investment Director Tuomas Oksanen, with Laatu running the lab/validation side.

*Note: Beyond his Grid.vc/Grid.lab role, advisory work, and energy/EV focus, publicly verifiable details of Laatu's earlier career and education were not available in the sources reviewed; the items above are limited to what could be corroborated.*

• Invests at pre-seed and seed, explicitly willing to come in early — "from pilot phase onwards" — and to back ideas before they are fully de-risked, using Grid.lab to validate them with real energy-company customers.
• Initial checks typically €100k–€500k.
• Thesis is built around the energy transition — framed by Grid.vc as "potentially the biggest business opportunity of our time" — and "technologies enabling transition into a new sustainable energy system."
• Breadth across the energy value chain: electricity, heat, energy savings, production, smart grids, storage, mobility/EV, trading, and adjacent customer-interface plays; recurring themes are energy efficiency, circular economy, and CO₂ emission reduction.
• A key differentiator is the corporate-partner / Grid.lab advantage: startups get direct access to utilities for feedback, piloting, and potential first-customer relationships — what makes the fund say "yes" is often a clear fit to pilot with its energy-company network.