The Finnish technology company Uros has deliberately concealed the information and provided false information to secure millions of euros in R&D funding in the early 2010s, the state investment agency Business Finland has said.
From 2011 to 2013, the company received almost EUR 5 million in loans and a grant of EUR 1.25 million from Tekes, the predecessor of Business Finland, and the Finnish Finance and Innovation Agency.
At the end of last year, the agency demanded that Uros repay the money immediately, but the technology company has appealed to the Helsinki administration court.
In a statement submitted to the court, Business Finland stated that in 2019 and 2020 it learned that Uros had concealed information that would have led to the denial of grants and loans.
"The company has applied for and received financing for a proposed licensed business which, according to the information provided, it did not intend to carry out," the statement stated that Uros had secretly agreed to transfer the proceeds to the Luxembourg subsidiary.
Founded in 2011 in the city of Oulu, Uros has built its business around consumer and Internet of Things connections, as well as cloud-based service platforms and connected devices.
The company went public in March 2020 when it was announced that the name of the 14,000-seat multi-purpose Tampere Arena, which will be completed in December this year, will be Uros Live Arena, as the company had secured the designation. legal agreement.
However, the news agency STT reported earlier this month that Uros has paid interest on its Business Finland loans only during the last ten years and only partially, a total of less than EUR 400,000.
The non-payment of the loans is particularly curious, STT said, as the company claims to have received an operating profit of more than 300 million euros in 2017โ2019 alone.
Earlier this week, the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat wrote that the company has failed to pay several small bills since July, while STT reports that Uros had to pay about EUR 15 million to debtors, including the Treasury, Nordea Bank and OP Oulu Bank.