Xiphera will be a member of a consortium, which has signed an indirect industrial cooperation agreement with Lockheed Martin related to the F-35 program in Finland. The agreement initiates unique development work of highly secure electronics for defense applications and building of cybersecurity testing laboratories in Finland.
The consortium is led by Crosshill Ltd, and in addition to Xiphera, it includes Habilito Oy and Nixu Corporation from Finland. The project combines the expertise of the Finnish companies with Lockheed Martin’s capabilities and global defense industry leadership.
Gorilla Capital invests in Thermal Storage Finland 🇫🇮
Thermal Storage Finland Oy (TSF) sells and manufactures unique self-developed hybrid thermal power plants for the renewable CO-2 free energy market. The company’s goal is to be Northern Europe’s leading manufacturer of hybrid thermal power plants.
The hybrid thermal power plant uses modern heat pump technology, combined with thermal and electrical solar energy. TSF power plant is controlled by self-developed intelligent control system. TSF control system together with exceptional use case of heat pumps, enables superior efficiency and CO2- emissions free heating solution for properties that consume more than 300 MWh annually.
“We recognized well in advance the importance of this financing round from the perspective of the company’s future. We focused and put a lot of effort into it. The most important thing for us was to find the right partners to ensure controlled and at the same time aggressive growth of the company. Already at the first meeting with Risto, the whole team got the feeling that Gorilla is the number one choice for us. We are very happy and grateful for where we are heading now”.TSF founder & CEOJanne Ritakoski states.
“We are a sector agnostic portfolio investor aiming for high diversification. We were impressed both by the innovative yet pragmatic solution TSF has developed for an increasingly acute problem and their startup style approach in a conservative industry. We warmly welcome TSF to the Gorilla family of “camels!”, says Risto Rautakorpi, Managing and Founding Partner at Gorilla Capital.
Habbie’s service service makes training fun and motivating, ensures the quality of the treatment and promotes compliance and follow-up. For staff and caregivers, Habbie provides the opportunity to help more people, regardless of whether it is personal rehab training at home or preventive group training at the nursing home, with existing resources.
“Already today, there is a lack of staff in healthcare and as more and more people are getting older, healthcare will not be able to cope with the task. That’s why Habbie was developed, a service that helps caregivers help more people and motivates the patient so that the training is also carried out”, says Martin Larsson, CEO Habbie HealthTech AB.
“When we meet founders we always ask ourselves are they curious about solving their customer’s problem? With Habbie that crystallised quite quickly and we were happy to find out that the first version of Habbie was developed in close collaboration with customers. With this mindset and previous entrepreneurial experience, Habbie is well-positioned to be the much-needed service that can help elderly care and rehabilitation improve”, says Petter Hattenbach, Venture Partner, Gorilla Capital.
10.team is a community connecting pro marketers with pro athletes for strategic partnerships, developed by 10 Sports Marketing Hub Inc based in Helsinki Olympic Stadium and backed by successful marketing entrepreneurs.
”Athletes are incredible partners for growth-minded brands. Our platform makes it easy to scale digital collaborations and our vision is to become the European champion”, says 10.team Founder & CaptainErkko Simsiö.
“We at Gorilla were impressed of 10.teams innovative approach to influencer marketing. The team behind is experienced in the field of marketing and Erkko as the founder has a proven track record as an entrepreneur. Moreover, Erkko’s background as a semi-professional athlete as well as his involvement in media and marketing throughout his career is reflected in his ability to understand why customers buy. In the US these type of services exist already and now 10.team will bring them to Europe”, continues Petri Lehmuskoski, founding partner at Gorilla Capital.
Lola Panda is a trademarked game character, featuring in children’s mobile games created by Finnish computer game developer BeiZ Oy.
Lola Panda provides best learning games for children in preschool and early education. Children can learn to read, count and solve problems with Lola Panda learning games. Educational applications developed by BeiZ Oy have been downloaded more than 40 million times in ten language areas.
“Learning to read is a challenge, even in countries with a high level of education. For example, in the United States, only 32% of fourth-grade children can read well. The learning model of Lola Panda applications has been adapted to suit different language areas based on learnings from previousLola Panda applications. Lola Panda’s reading apps have been available in ten languages for years, so the company has been able to develop a solution to this big, global problem,” says founder Mika Heikinheimo.
“Knowing how to read is one of the most important skills that everyone should acquire at some point. The market is growing at a fast pace, but even in several large markets there is a lack of professional reading learning applications. Lola World learning application is in the early stages of the development path, but it is already one of the best solutions and it has already helped thousands of children to read. Now the company must deliver on its promise and offer even larger language areas the most fun way to learn to read,” says Risto Rautakorpi, Founding Partner, Gorilla Capital.
Clever Compliance provides a cloud-based SaaS solution to streamline and manage product compliance tasks for both small and large enterprises.
Their services focus on automating the compliance process across organizations, helping to mitigate risks associated with non-compliance and enhancing overall efficiency in meeting legal requirements.
“Regulatory Compliance is the third largest risk for large enterprises. Our goal, is not just streamlining the tedious compliance work and minimizing this risk; but revolutionizing the entire compliance industry. Our cutting-edge solution will change the way regulatory compliance will be handled in the future.” says Tobias Rydel, Chief Strategy Officer & founder.
“At Gorilla Capital we invest in camels, the humble, capital-efficient startups that find their way to the end destination, rain or shine. I met Tobias several years ago and already back then he showed the traits of a camel. With small resources, he has kept on crossing the desert, outsmarting challenge after challenge and winning customer after customer. We are happy now to join Tobias on his journey with Clever Compliance and look forward to helping many more customers not only stay CE compliant but also be on top of regulatory changes.” Says Petter Hattenbach, Venture Partner, Gorilla Capital.”
Eemel.com is a social financial management service platform for small businesses. It facilitates easy and efficient tendering, bid reception, and interaction between different types of users on a global scale.
At the core of Eemel.com is an extensive software based on the Nettilasku.fi service, which includes comprehensive financial management features, banking integrations, and electronic signing.
Jarkko Kähkönen, founder of Epic Invoicing Oy, comments: “We are deeply grateful to Gorilla Capital and all our angel investors for their significant contribution to our company. This investment enables strong growth and provides us with the resources to develop even better services for our current and new users.”
“We’re excited to partner with Jarkko and the whole Epic Invoicing team on their growth journey. The team has demonstrated exceptional understanding of the needs and challenges of small businesses when it comes to financial software and has already built an impressive product with Nettilasku that displays true virality because of its excellence.”, says Risto Rautakorpi, Founding and Managing Partner at Gorilla Capital.
We believe this new funding will allow Epic to scale their presence and become a significant market player in the fragmented small business financial software market.”, continues Risto.
Daymi makes financial services providers’ operations easier, efficient and more secure.
“As a regulated company, it’s not enough to just do things, you also have to prove it to auditors, investors or regulators. Daymi is designed to make day-to-day and month-to-month activities easy to track and perform, and at the same time allowing anyone to prove it with the click of a button.” says Carl-Fredrik Svensson, CEO and co-founder at Daymi.
”Who finds digitalising back office work for the financial industry exciting? Carl-Fredrik and Fabian Lindegren from Daymi of course, but also Gorilla Capital! Carl-Fredrik and Fabian started in the back office business and after a while, they got the task of finding a tool for digitalising processes. Since there were no tools on the market, Carl-Fredrik and Fabian decided to build one and already from the start they had customers.”, says Petter Hattenbach, Venture Partner at Gorilla Capital.
“This is the kind of startup journey that we at Gorilla Capital like to invest in. Two dedicated founders who come from the industry and have spotted a problem, which they - in close collaboration with their first customers - can create a solution for. Today Daymi is trusted by the best in the industry”, Petter continues.
The Quality Innovation Award was now organised for the 17th time. This year, the competition received 562 entries from eight countries/areas, and the best 24 of them were rewarded. The winners of national quality contests can enter the international competition. National quality association (Excellence Finland) selected the winner for Finland.
Congratulations Juha Koponen and the team + team MetsäGroup for the achievement!
The AI-based application (against forest insect damage) identifies starting bark beetle-caused damage in the forest, and so helps to combat forest infestations already at an early stage. Insect damage in trees can be identified by analysing satellite images provided by ESA’s Copernicus service.
This is good news for entrepreneurs with imports or exports & using European road freights!
“We provide the easiest way to book freights with competitive prices. FreighOpt offers comprehensive freight management with one system - shippers can search, book and track shipments. Savings are achieved with multiple transparent options, higher volumes and automation which enables international competitiveness.” sais Niklas Björk, Co-founder at FreightOpt Oy
”We are happy to join the FreightOpt story and to be able to help the team reach its best potential. I have experienced the challenges of freight logistics myself when being an entrepreneur at Toptronics Oy. FreightOpt eases the headache of many small and midsize company entrepreneurs. The team has worked tightly together with customers since 2021 to provide the easiest way to book road freights with competitive prices – and the systematic work is starting to pay off with +500 unique booking customers and +1,500,000€ bookings per year! praises Petri Lehmuskoski, Founding Partner, Gorilla Capital
The Swiss Digital Alliance and Gravito Ltd introduce OneID, a revolutionary advertising ID system. Empowering 3 million users with unprecedented data control, OneID sets new benchmarks in responsible advertising and data protection.
The Swiss Digital Alliance, a consortium of the four biggest private Swiss media houses (CH Media, NZZ, Ringier and TX Group) and public broadcaster SRG, is responding to the increasing international competition for advertising revenue by investing in local cooperation.
To achieve this goal, the Alliance has partnered with Helsinki-based software developer Gravito Oy, which will provide software to create the responsible advertising ID for Switzerland called “OneID”. With OneID, over 3 million users can be addressed on the attractive premium publishers in Switzerland without overlap. At the same time, it ensures that modern data protection standards are adhered to and that users retain control over their data.
DealGuru is creating Sweden’s largest community for shopping and deals. With SEK 10 million in risk capital secured, the goal is to help Swedes save money through smarter purchasing decisions.
“I love good deals, but there is no site that collects all really good offers and discounts. That’s why we started DealGuru, to give all Swedes the opportunity to discover all the great deals and save money,” says Johan Selin, CEO and founder.
- “I love saving in all forms, so DealGuru’s business idea feels very exciting. Being able to be part of the journey from the start and also start investing in unlisted companies is both very exciting and educating,” says investor Nicklas Andersson, previously Avanza’s former savings economist, who joined DealGuru as one of the first investors in 2022.
Gorilla Capital is happy join forces with Dealguru team and the other investors: Innovestor as well as a group of experienced entrepreneurs, business angels and family offices from Finland.
“We invest in teams with a clear vision and capacity to transform ideas into successful companies with the customer in focus. DealGuru fulfills all our criteria with flying colours, which is why they are one of our very first investments from our 3rd fund”, concludes Risto Rautakorpi, Managing Partner at Gorilla Capital.
Read more about Dealguru from 👉🏼 Breakit article (in Swedish)
Axitare nominated 6th on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Finland winner list
Gorilla portfolio company / team Axitare, lead by Penttinen Jukka, has been nominated 6th on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Finland 2023 winners list.
Axitare is a Finnish innovator in healthcare technology. Their hassle-free medication dispensers are supporting elderly people living at home.
Already over 2,000 happy end-users due to truly easy-to-use experience:
- Toucheless pill dose dispensing
- Clear voice notification by name to remember to take the medicines
- Alerts for missed medication to the carer / relatives
Gorilla invests in Raxalle led by CEO Lauri Sulanto.
Raxalle automatizes workforce management and compliance on construction sites.
It is building a platform to automate day-to-day workforce management and compliance tasks on construction sites, freeing up site personnel’s time so they can focus on running the project.
The Raxalle team has spent its early days entirely customer-funded, developing a product in close collaboration with their customers while forming a vision of what automation in this space could look like. The team is now looking forward to speeding up development with the strengthened resources.
Kicking off the year by announcing the second investment from Gorilla Capital Fund III
Kwizie.ai is transforming passive video consumption into engaging multiplayer quiz games.
Led by Chris Petrie (CEO), Andrei Laperie (CTO) and Janne Jormalainen (Chairman of the Board), Kwizie revolutionizes passive video watching by transforming any kind of video content – from in-depth 3 hour lectures to brief, spontaneous tutorials captured using your smartphone – into an interactive learning experience with AI.
In just a few minutes, educators can transform even somewhat disorganized or poorly recorded video content into an organized, data-driven and gamified educational experience for their learners.
Kwizie has already made its mark - the tool is now being used on all continents by thousands of educators (see educator testimonials in video and text) and earning recognition as a finalist in five international awards.
