Congratulations to our new portfolio company Sensmet Ltd for successfully closing their funding round due to oversubscription and raising their target of 700,000€! We warmly welcome all our co-investors and thank you for joining and supporting Sensmet forward on their growth journey together with us. We lead the round with a 250,000€ venture capital investment and were joined by private co-investors.
IPCC’s report published last year raised people’s awareness on climate change. According to the report, the climate is warming even faster than what has been previously estimated. Reversing this development requires radical actions. To accurately measure and forecast climate changes is now more important than ever before.
So far the measurement focus has mainly been on the Earth’s atmosphere. This is visible also for the average web user: local weather data, reports, and forecasts are readily available from all over the world. In contrast, there is big lack of real-time data on oceans and other water systems. Until now, there has been two options for conducting comprehensive and accurate determination of water quality and measurement of water composition: either time-consuming laboratory analyses or significant investments in several separate real-time analyzers. Sensmet introduces a step change in real-time water analytics.
Sensmet’s unique proposal
“Our solution radically differs from other real-time water quality measurement technologies”, tells Sensmet’s CTO Toni Laurila, and continues: “The proprietary Sensmet water analyzer employing micro-plasma technology allows for hundred times more data on every drop of water than what has been previously available. And all this is done in minutes, with a single analyzer. This comprehensive approach is the first ever cost-effective alternative to laboratory analyses and is applicable to a wide range of monitoring needs in environmental and industrial sectors.”
Sensmet’s breakthrough innovation generates a lot of real-time data about water quality and changes in it. This enables the use of machine learning tools to further improve the reliability of measurements and to define such water parameters which would otherwise require laboratory analyses. It provides Sensmet with a clear competitive advantage over the existing water measurement solutions.
Environmental water monitoring is one of Sensmet’s business lines. The other is heavy industry which significantly benefits from real-time water analyses. Comprehensive real-time water analytics is needed, for example, in the process optimization to reduce the use of energy, raw materials and chemicals. One customer estimated that they save over million euros annually by virtue of applying Sensmet’s solution for analyzing their hydrometallurgical mining process. Generating comprehensive real-time data for process optimization is a clear benefit for Sensmet’s heavy industry partners. Another advantage is the capability to make reliable measurements in processes having varying water quality—something traditional technologies such as titration are typically incapable of producing.
From research projects to first paying customers
In 2017 Sensmet was founded and since then it has been bootstrapping the water analyzer technology together with the first paying customers. For example, the city of Espoo has already used Sensmet’s technology for real-time environmental storm water monitoring. In early 2019, company’s proposal to analyze the contaminants in the melt water of snow won an innovation competition organized by the city of Helsinki. The objective is to implement the proposed monitoring scheme next winter either in Kyläsaari or Hernesaari areas.
The capital which was now raised will be used for product commercialization, sales and marketing, as well as internationalization. “Water in Finland is very clean. When you think of it, it’s quite something that pioneering work in water analytics is done over here. The majority of our potential customers, however, are abroad. For example in China it is estimated that over 60% of groundwater is contaminated. This is alarming and demonstrates the need for new technological solutions”, Laurila concludes.
Interested in investing in early-stage growth companies together with a professional venture capital investor?
Learn more about how to invest with us and subscribe to our newsletter to be amongst the first to hear about our next co-investment opportunities.