Nokia Technopolis Innovation Mill Breeds 4 New Start-ups
11.09.2009 00:00
Technopolis announced that 4 new companies have been created through the Nokia Technopolis Innovation Mill IPR spinout platform. Two companies are public – There Corporation and Sports Tracking Technologies Ltd – while 2 others remain in stealth mode. In addition There Corporation announced a major venture capital round.
Nokia Corporation, Technopolis PLC and the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES) announced the Nokia Technopolis Innovation program in May, 2009. The purpose of the 3-year program is to convert Nokia’s unused ideas and innovations into growth businesses through both founding new companies and by licensing them to selected Finnish ICT companies for further development and exploitation.
The first set of innovations were approved last month, and while two of them remain in stealth mode, both There Corporation and Sports Tracking Technologies are making a very significant impact.
There Corporation was formed in May 2009 by the management team of the Nokia Smart Home program to commercialize technology developed over a number of years at Nokia. All the related development, results, materials, deals and know-how have been transferred from Nokia to There Corporation with a licensing deal between the companies. At the same time, the Comsel team was merged with the company, bringing smart metering and energy efficiency know-how to the There Corporation. The first pilot solutions are expected to be released in the beginning of 2010.
There Corporation also announced today that it has closed a €4,5 million funding round. The main investors are the current management team and Power Fund II which is managed by the Finnish venture capitalist VNT Management specializing in green, clean technologies.
Sports Tracking Technologies is developing applications based on the extremely popular Nokia Sports Tracker application, which millions of mobile phone users have downloaded worldwide. The company plans to roll out a number of new applications and tools in the coming months, including extending their client offering to cover new platforms in addition to Nokia's Series 60.
Under the Innovation Mill program, both companies received grant packages to help them complete product development and market research. In There Corporation’s case, the grants were received from the City of Tampere and TEKES, while the city of Helsinki along with TEKES contributed to Sports Tracking Technologies.
The founders of each company say that Innovation Mill catalyzed their spin-outs from Nokia. Jussi Kaasinen, one of the founders of Sports Tracking Technologies stated "the Technopolis team helped us raise the initial grants by Tekes and City of Helsinki, and are now actively helping us find the expertise to build the company”.Toni Sormunen, founder and COO of There Corporation, agrees, “the Innovation Mill program helped us focus on business while giving us additional capital to speed product development and to do proper market research.”
“We are very happy with the progress of Innovation Mill,” stated Will Cardwell, Director of Technopolis Development Services. “We are at the rate of an average of one spinout per month, and we have a nice pipeline of new deals in the works. These new companies prove that Innovation Mill is a viable model, and we hope that more and more existing companies will also leverage Nokia’s non-core IPR through our Innovation Mill program.
About Technopolis Measured by the number of clients, Technopolis Plc is one of Europe's largest science and technology park chains. The Technopolis Group is Finland's largest specialized provider of business environment services for high tech companies offering a comprehensive range of services combining modern premises with business and development services. Technopolis operates technology centers in Espoo, Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Lappeenranta, Oulu, Tampere and Vantaa in Finland, and in St. Petersburg in Russia. Currently, some 1,180 companies with 16,000 employees are working in the Technopolis technology centers. www.technopolis.fi
About There Corporation There corporation was established in May 2009 by the Nokia Smart Home team with the know-how of mobile and platform technology. Combining this with the smart metering experience of the Comsel team from the Vaasa energy cluster creates a unique and strong basis to for developing new generation energy solutions. www.therecorporation.com
About Sports Tracking Technologies Sports Tracking Technologies corporation was established in May 2009 by the Nokia Sports Tracker team management, with years of experience in building the Nokia Sports Tracker mobile application and web site. The company develops a multi-platform sports tracking experience inspiring and activating people globally. info@sportstrackingtechnologies.com
(Source: Technopolis press release 11.9.2009)
For more information please visit:
www.otaniemi.fi
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