Always ready: The story of Valbo the Valamis arctic fox

You have probably already met Valbo. A small white arctic fox, wrapped in the warmth of a Valamis scarf. Maybe you’ve seen the fox in our social media, or you took one home from our booth at an event. Maybe it’s sitting on your desk right now.

We have handed out more Valbos at events than we can count. We have watched people light up when they see it. Now, with a fresh look that reflects the new Valamis brand, it feels like the right moment to tell the whole story.

It all started in Finland

Valamis was founded in Joensuu, in eastern Finland in 2003. The name is a variation of valmis — the Finnish word for “ready.” Not completed. Not finished. Ready.

There is a meaningful difference. Ready means you have built the capability to face what comes next. That distinction sits at the heart of everything Valamis does, and it is why a learning platform felt like the right thing to build.

And when it was time to find a mascot for Valamis, we only had to look north.

The animal that was there first

The choice of animal to represent Valbo was not random. The arctic fox was one of the first mammals to reach Finland after the last Ice Age.

An animal not much bigger than a small dog, stepping into a frontier that almost nothing else had reached yet. It simply arrived, figured out how to survive, and stayed.

The fox has a white coat in winter that shifts to darker tones in summer to fit in with its changing environment. It withstands temperatures of −40°C, and it does not wait for conditions to improve. It adapts.

Today, fewer than 20 arctic foxes move through Finland in any given year. It is the country’s most endangered mammal. For decades, conservation teams worked to bring it back, and in 2022 they recorded the first successful breeding in Finnish Lapland in over 25 years as they welcomed three new pups. A small, but resilient return.

We find that genuinely moving. An animal that adapts, persists, and keeps coming back. That is the spirit we wanted Valbo to carry and the same one that has shaped Valamis from the start.

White arctic fox in its winter habitat

Meet Valbo

Valbo stands for “Valamis Bot.” We kept it simple because we were not naming a feature. We were naming a companion.

Curious. Intuitive. Ready when you are. That is exactly what Valbo was designed to be. The idea was never to build a feature. It was to build a presence. Something that felt like it was on your side, understood what you were trying to do, and helped you get there without making the process feel complicated or cold.

The word ready is at the root of everything. Valamis was built on that idea, and Valbo carries it forward.

New 2026 Valbo

Ahead of its time

Valbo has been around since 2017 long before AI assistants became a standard part of workplace software.

Valamis built an AI companion with an arctic fox icon and a straightforward goal. Make learning feel guided, personal, and useful in the moment and not just something you did because you were told to.

But the market wasn’t ready. Most organizations were still figuring out what an LMS was supposed to do. An intelligent guide layered on top of one was a harder conversation than anyone anticipated.

Valamis kept the idea anyway. The design evolved over the years, becoming more refined, more recognizably Valbo. But the fox stayed, because the belief behind it did not change.

Finnish companies tend to think in longer horizons. You build what you believe in, and you wait for the world to come around.

Evolution of the valbo images

Valbo in the platform

Today, Valbo is the face of the Valamis AI Copilot Connector. It connects your learning platform directly with Microsoft Copilot, so learners can ask natural questions, find the right content, and receive intelligent recommendations without leaving their workflow. It is not just a search. It is AI that understands your learning ecosystem and acts on your behalf.

But Valbo is more than the copilot. It is the answer to a question that runs through everything Valamis builds: what does it feel like to be genuinely supported in your learning?

It feels like trust. Like someone who knows what you need before you have fully articulated it. The kind of presence that asks a good question and actually listens to the answer.

Valbo in action as the AI Copilot companion

Always ready

The arctic fox arrived in Finland before almost anything else. It adapted to conditions that would have stopped most animals.

Valamis has followed a version of that arc. From Joensuu to a global platform. From a 2017 chatbot no one was ready for, to an AI copilot that sits at the center of how organizations develop their people. From a small fox on a screen to a companion that people pick up and hold.

We made Valbo because we wanted Valamis to feel the way the best learning feels: warm, curious, and genuinely interested in the person in front of it.

If you want to know more about Valamis, or what Valbo gets up to in the platform, let’s have a conversation. That is, after all, what Valbo would do.