Top tech companies in Oulu, Finland
Oulu (pronounced OH-loo) has a very cool climate indeed, but its tech scene sizzles with activity throughout the year. Known historically for fisheries, lumbering and tar production, Oulu is also a popular seaside resort, especially in summer months, when it is light outdoors for most of the night.
Today, though, tech giant Nokia is one of the major employers in the Finnish municipality. The city is also the location of many other tech companies, ranging from other well-established firms to an array of startups. AI and healthcare tech are particular strong suits.
Despite its dark and snowy winters, Oulu is considered one of Europe’s “living labs,” where citizens of all ages have gone out and experimented with emerging technologies on a community-wide basis.
The founding of the University of Oulu in 1958 profoundly changed Oulu’s economy and population, which has now grown to more than 200,000 residents, making Oulu the biggest urban centre in northern Scandinavia. Oulu is also home to a place called Technopolis (“technology village”), a local hub for tech companies and services.
Here’s an overview of six of the top tech companies in Oulu.
Haltian
During the global pandemic, working from home and other remote locations became so common that many people from both the employee and employer sides started to contemplate the hybrid office – combining elements of both the traditional and remote office – as a possible long-term arrangement.
According to a recent study by Gallup, that future is already here. Zoom and Meta are just two examples of businesses now requiring full-time employees to be on-site only two to three days per week, the survey results point out. All told, 60% of remote-capable employees – or those with jobs that can be done at least partially at home – were working fully on-site as of 2019. By 2023, that number had plummeted to 20%.
Oulu-based Haltian has produced a suite of products to meet these needs. For example, it provides IoT data collection and asset tracking to improve employees’ experiences, and offers a three-step consultation process to help businesses transition to hybrid workplaces.
As a concrete example, consider RADAR, one of its latest products. This uses sensors to collect real-time data on parking space occupancy. It also enables employees to reserve space for days when they plan to work in the office.
Sensmet
Although lithium batteries are generally safe, defective or damaged batteries can present a fire and/or explosion hazard.
The dangers of defective or damaged batteries have been easy to see, in incidents ranging from a fire aboard an electric bus in Paris to explosions of cellphones, laptops and electric bikes across the world.
Founded in 2019, Sensmet is a company in Oulu specialising in the analysis of lithium and other battery metals. It helps with real-time online monitoring of metal concentrations in battery manufacturing and recycling to raise productivity, reduce costs, and ensure quality and purity.
Sensmet’s technology is also used in black mass recycling. Here, the aim is to recover valuable metals such as lithium and cobalt during battery recycling, as well as for the detection of battery materials in wastewater.
Cerenion
Patients arriving at hospital emergency rooms in critical condition are typically admitted to intensive care units (ICU) for close monitoring and potentially life-saving treatment.
One tool frequently used in ICUs is electroencephalography (EEG), for monitoring brain activity. EEG can help to detect and manage seizures, assess the depth of medication needed for induced comas, and identify and grade encephalography, a broad term referring to disorders that change brain function or structure.
Oulu-based startup Cerenion has developed medical software which combines EEG with advanced ML algorithms and AI to assist healthcare providers in making clinical decisions.
Cerenion maintains that its C-TREND technology can improve both the quality and cost of ICU treatment.
Arctic Security
When it comes to cyberattacks, media reports tend to focus on exploits against high-profile organisations like national governments and major corporations.
Yet in 2023, 73% of small businesses reported cyberattacks or data breaches over the previous year, representing a significant surge above previous years, according to the 2023 Business Impact Report: Small Businesses and Cyberattacks.
Anyone with even an email address also has an attack vector, notes Arctic Security. After building a technology platform used by National Cyber Security Centers (NCSCs) and Certified Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in many nations, the company has re-packaged the platform to work easily for smaller organizations.
Its tools are designed to catch malware, network vulnerabilities, and security breaches in ways that other solutions cannot. As described by Arctic, these tools automate the collection, processing, harmonization, and distribution of threat intelligence.
Valossa
In the entertainment and advertising industries, the transition from analogue to digital video is bringing advantages that include easy sharing and storage and inexpensive copying, with no degradation of quality when copied. Another big plus is that digital video can be integrated with other digital technologies, including artificial intelligence.
Founded in 2015, Valossa has introduced AI automation for video promos. According to the company, the technology features AI-generated content and metadata which can be used for immersive over-the-top (OTT) and video-on-demand (VoD) user experiences.
The company claims that its systems can watch content at superhuman speeds, identifying people, recognizing visual objects, and listening to audio to produce descriptive metadata designed for searching and tracking video.
The video AI technology can also discover, analyze and understand action. Another application is the detection of sensitive content. with the aim of ensuring that ad branding only appears on appropriate content for target audiences.
VividWorks
Customers want companies to understand their individual needs and requirements, but 66% get the sense they are often treated like numbers, according to research by Salesforce.
Yet for their part, 63% of digital marketing executives still find offering tailored experiences to customers to be challenging, notes Gartner.
VividWorks, a specialist in 3D visualization for commerce, aims to make it easy for businesses to add personalization to their websites with tools such as a 3D room planner and a 3D product configurator that lets customers design their own products in a photorealistic environment. Capabilities include VR, AR and animation.
VividWorks contends that the adoption of its cloud-based personalization platform results in a 200% increase in conversion rate, 80% faster sales cycle, and 50% increase in average order value.
Top tech companies in other European cities
Jacqueline Emigh
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