LocalBiorefinery moves to Turku Startup Hub to accelerate circular biorefinery growth
Press release
Turku, Finland — 23 October 2026 — LocalBiorefinery has moved into its new premises at Turku Startup Hub in the Axelia II building on the University of Turku campus. The move places the company at the centre of Turku’s growing innovation ecosystem, alongside startups, researchers, investors, universities and Business Turku’s business-development services.
Turku Startup Hub is the startup community of Business Turku, the development company of the Turku region. Its new Axelia II location brings together founders, support organisations, investors and research communities, with a focus on areas including clean transition, food and nutrition, health and life sciences, and technology commercialisation.
For LocalBiorefinery, the new base strengthens the company’s ability to develop and commercialise its water-based biorefinery technology. The company converts forest-industry sidestreams, such as sawdust, into high-value products including hemicellulose-based food and feed ingredients, biochar and activated carbon. Its solvent-free, pressurised hot-water extraction process is designed to enable cleaner, scalable and digitally optimised biomass valorisation.
“Moving to Turku Startup Hub at Axelia II gives us an excellent environment to develop our technology, meet partners and build the next phase of LocalBiorefinery,” said Heikki Vuorikoski, CEO of LocalBiorefinery. “The campus location connects us directly with research expertise, talent and companies working on the clean transition. That is exactly the kind of ecosystem our biorefinery solutions need as we scale.”
The Axelia II premises offer LocalBiorefinery proximity to the University of Turku campus, Novia University of Applied Sciences and the wider Turku Growth Hub community. The hub provides office, laboratory and development spaces, including pilot facilities intended to support technology testing and scale-up.
LocalBiorefinery will use the new location to advance customer and partner discussions, research collaboration, pilot development and international growth. The company is particularly focused on creating local value from Nordic biomass sidestreams and replacing imported raw materials with high-performance, renewable alternatives.
About LocalBiorefinery
LocalBiorefinery develops modular, water-based biorefinery solutions that turn forest and agricultural sidestreams into valuable bio-based products. Its technology supports the production of hemicellulose ingredients, biochar, activated carbon and other circular-economy materials for applications in food, feed, filtration, soil improvement and industrial processes.
About Turku Startup Hub
Turku Startup Hub is the startup community of Business Turku. It supports founders from early ideas to international growth through mentoring, funding and internationalisation advisory, accelerator programmes, investor connections, events and a strong regional network.
