Inventure, a leading early-stage venture capital company in the Nordics, has competed a new investment in Spectral Engines, the company revolutionising spectral sensing with disruptive MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) -based sensor technology.
Spectral Engines provides unique miniaturised spectral sensors for detection and analysis of gases, solids and liquids to improve the quality and energy efficiency in manufacturing. The devices are used, for example, for measuring moisture in process industry, food content (protein, fat, sugars), and for gas detection and analysis.
Traditionally, most of the companies have been using infrared spectroscopy for reliable materials detection and analysis. Today smaller, smarter and cheaper devices come into play to revolutionise the industry. Spectral Engines offers spectrometer performance at a sensor price point. The unique scalable technology enables size and cost reduction in the next generation of spectral measurement. Huge spectrometer machines are replaced by compact, lightweight, cost effective and low power sensors, which are also compatible to be connected wirelessly to Internet-of-Things and cloud services.
Timo Tirkkonen, Partner at Inventure comments: “We are excited to help bringing the next generation sensing technologies to the market. The Spectral Engines team has a very strong knowledge on the technology. In addition, they already have an impressive customer pipeline, which is a great achievement for a seed-phase company.”
Spectral Engines was established during spring 2014 and has already received EUR 890 thousand funding from Inventure, Finnvera and VTT Ventures, in addition to EUR 670 thousand Tekes funding. The technology was born several years ago at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, where the first MEMS components were developed in the early 90s. Since then, a great amount of research and development has been put into the MEMS components and processes, and into related instrumentation and sensors. In recent years the development has been strongly customer-driven, but a commercialising vehicle has been missing, as VTT focuses on research.
Jarkko Antila, CEO at Spectral Engines comments: “We saw that a company in this field would have a great potential. The technology was getting mature, and finally all the pieces fell in place when our team was formed, having both deep technical knowledge and customer skills along with vast network and ambition. Indeed, we managed to close our first customer deals even before closing the seed funding, and we are expecting to reach significant turnover already during the first year of operation.”
More information:
Timo Tirkkonen, Partner, Inventure, mobile +358 40 5751553
Jarkko Antila, CEO, Spectral Engines, mobile +358 50 5298876
