Using the Internet of Things (IoT) for the office isn’t easy – especially on an enterprise level. Companies have managing IoT devices to worry about, as well as building the infrastructure needed to keep those devices connected and running.
To make it easier, five former co-workers—Pasi Laipala, Timo Vatovara, Jyrki Okonen, Phil Jellasjärvi, and Tony Leinonen—found Haltian, a startup that provides a suite of sensors, cellular gateways, device management dashboards, and software to help companies organize the Internet of Things in place. the job.
Showing investor interest in the idea, Haltian recently closed a €22 million (about $24 million) funding round led by Mandatum Asset Management Growth Equity with participation from Varma, Tesi, Ventic and Inventure. Total company funding to date has come to €40 million (~$43.7 million), which Haltian CEO Lipala says will be allocated to support international expansion into Central Europe and North America, as well as Haltian’s recruitment efforts.
“We were drawn to Haltian because it is able to digitize the built environment and generate data savings for its clients that were not available before,” Kitty Lynn, chief investment officer at Mandatum Asset Management, said via email. “Cloud-connected smart sensors and top-of-the-line research and development have received feedback Excellent feedback from US-based customers, and we’re excited to see how Haltian products gain traction in international markets.”
The IoT market has proven resilient to the vagaries of the broader tech space, with data from Crunchbase showing that the average amount of capital raised by IoT startups in 2022 reached the highest point in more than a decade.
Unsurprisingly, Haltian isn’t the only startup vying for a sizable slice of venture capital. Recently, a startup called Memfault raised $24 million for its platform designed to help companies manage their growing fleets of IoT devices. Elsewhere, Fleet has secured tens of millions of dollars for its device management software. There’s also Esper, which got $30 million in May 2021 to grow its IoT DevOps platform.
What sets Haltian apart, says Lepala, CEO, is the comprehensiveness of its product offering. Leipälä and the other Haltian founders had previously worked at Nokia in one of the company’s smartphone divisions, which is where the seed of Haltian’s idea came from.
Haltian first focused on providing outstanding engineering services to other companies. Development of our IoT products began two years later, with the income earned from engineering services,” Lepala told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Haltian is one of the few companies capable of providing end-to-end IoT solutions. We are able to customize any profile. . . According to customer requirements.
Through a combination of sensors and artificial intelligence algorithms, the Haltian platform can count the number of people in an office or building or track things like carbon dioxide and humidity levels. It can also monitor light usage, leaks, and dips in temperature as well as detect when paper, towel, and soap dispensers are about to run out.
There is a lot of sensitive data that Haltian collects. But Laibala maintains that it is anonymous and stored in a private cloud. (In case you didn’t look at the Customer Service Agreement, we’ll have to take his word for it.)
“For Haltian, scalability is not just about how many devices can be connected to a single gateway, but how logistically it can deliver thousands of fulfillment sites as well as how easy and quick it is to install, setup and lifecycle manage,” he added.
One of the factors working in Haltian’s favor is the growing interest in IoT among the enterprise. In a 2021 survey conducted by London-based consultancy Omdia, 90% of organizations said they consider IoT to be the core of their digital transformation plans or deployed across multiple areas of their organisation. A separate report by Gartner, published a year ago, estimated that 47% of organizations plan to increase their investments in the Internet of Things, with the goal of reducing costs and strengthening their overall digital transformation efforts.
Interestingly, about 75% of Haltian’s revenue comes from sales of its IoT devices, Leipälä says.
“We’ve grown at an average annual rate of nearly 50% for the past three years, and reached revenues of around 20 million euros ($21.85 million) last year,” Libala said. “Since the pandemic, there has been an increased focus on bringing office designs in line with company cultures, accompanied by supporting technologies – such as IoT solutions. At the same time, IoT sensor solutions are becoming more affordable, cost-effective and easier to implement.”
Riding the upward trend, Haltian has recently expanded into the US and Amsterdam, opening offices in California and the Netherlands. To date, it has raised a total of €40 million (~$43.71 million) and plans to expand its employee base from 145 employees to around 170 by the end of the year.