28.2.2024

SpinDrive provides novel active magnetic bearings for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The technology is more energy-efficient and affordable than any existing solution; it cuts industrial energy waste and pollution with magnetic levitation bearings. As there is no friction, the bearings can be used for up to 20 years without maintenance – in contrast, traditional ball bearings in industrial high-speed applications must often be maintained every year.

In addition, the SpinDrive solution provides condition monitoring and predictive maintenance of the whole machine – thus, it reduces overall maintenance costs by over 80 % as there is no need to install external sensors.

“High speed rotating machinery and its energy usage is both an economic as well as environmental issue. While gas turbines are not SpinDrive’s entry point, they are a good example of the scope of the opportunity. SpinDrive can improve the energy efficiency of a gas turbine by ten percent, one percent representing roughly billion euro worth of value and corresponding CO2 savings. The market within other rotating machinery is larger. In addition, despite the strong science background, SpinDrive team is unusually commercially thinking and frequently exceeding the expectations particularly what comes to the commercial side of running a startup.” – Juho Risku, Co-founder and Partner at Butterfly Ventures

The SpinDrive technology does not require oil to work so it eliminates the need for polluting lubricants from industrial production. EU factories consume 5 million tons of oil-based lubricants annually, and traditional bearing-based equipment has high leakage and contamination risk. Thus, the lubricant-free operation enables significantly more ecological production.

“Butterfly was the first institutional investor who believed in SpinDrive. With their support we have been able to accelerate our product development and ensure customer-centric focus. Our work with Juho and other Butterfly team members laid the strong basis for our company growth.” – Nikita Uzhegov, Co-founder and COO at SpinDrive

SpinDrive has customers across the globe, and they have achieved significant improvements in efficiency with the help of the technology. In late 2023, the company closed a Series A round of 3.8M€. The funding will be used to ramp up commercial growth and improve industrial efficiency in factories worldwide.

Founders
Janne Heikkinen, Nikita Uzhegov, Alexander Smirnov, Teemu Sillanpää

Office
Lappeenranta, Finland & Heilbronn, Germany

Details
Founded: 2015
Revenue: 440ke (2023)
Personnel: 15 (2023)

Financing
Butterfly invested: 2019
Total financing to date: 8M€
Last round: Q4/2023
Other investors: Innovestor, Rhapsody Venture Partners, Born2Grow, SDGx

Contact

cerenion.com info@nullcerenion.com https://www.linkedin.com/company/cerenion/

9.1.2020

Geyser Batteries produces the world’s most sustainable high-performance batteries. While li-ion batteries last thousands of cycles, Geyser Batteries are capable of charging millions of times. They charge to full only in seconds every time and remain operational from -60 to +85 ˚C.Besides being extremely powerful and long-lasting, Geyser Batteries are environmentally friendly and carbon neutral. The batteries are manufactured from common materials and water-based electrolytes, and they do not contain any toxic nor flammable materials. Geyser Batteries can be used in multiple industries, from heavy machinery to power grids and transportation.

The supercapacitor market is currently valued at €700 million, and it has a compound annual growth rate of 22 %. Researchers estimate that the market size will reach €3-5 billion by 2025. Remarkable growth is driven by several factors such as increasing demand for renewable energy solutions, the use of supercapacitors in trains and aircraft as well as demand for regenerative braking systems in hybrid and electric vehicles.

“The Butterfly team was the first to believe in Geyser. Their early investment in us in September 2018 has literally laid a founding stone for the company. Admittedly it was a bold move in support of a technology that came as surprise even for industry professionals. We were delighted to work with professionals that managed to develop a reasonable and structured investment approach for such a risky case that Geyser was back then. Cooperation with Butterfly Ventures has been a really good working relationship. Butterfly’s guys have been providing support when needed and making the burden of reporting and compliance very structured, and thus, easy to handle. They are an adequate and very efficient investor for early stages of deep-tech companies.” – Andrey Shigaev, CEO of Geyser Batteries

The company was founded in 2018 and its team has decades of experience in research, development, and manufacturing of supercapacitors. Geyser Batteries’ growing pace is fast: the company is currently producing its first batteries in small batches and aiming to begin mass production in Q1/2020. A pilot factory will be opened in Vaasa at the end of 2019.

“Geyser Batteries came through an introduction, after which we setup a meeting quite quickly. The team gave me a super professional impression from the very beginning and the value proposition of the case, i.e. number of cycles vs. energy density sounded super promising. The kind of professionalism that they’ve been able to exhibit throughout the entire time we’ve collaborated is extraordinary. Whatever you end up asking, they’re totally on top of it, and the determination of pushing things to the end is absolutely unique.”– Juho Risku, Co-founder and Partner of Butterfly Ventures

Geyser Batteries closed a seed round of €1 million in Q4/2019. The financing will be used for accelerating rapid growth in Finland and abroad.

Founders
Andrey Shigaev, Aleksei Beliakov, Oleg Podsechin

Office
Vaasa (Finland)

Details
Founded: 2018
Revenue: 0, 2018
Personnel: 25

Financing
Butterfly invested: Q3/2018
Total financing to date: €1.75M
Other investors: Voima Ventures, Ehrnrooth family office

Contact

geyserbatteries.com inbox@nullgeyserbatteries.com https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/10257619 https://twitter.com/geyserbatteries?lang=fi

20.11.2023

Surgify has developed a novel technology that improves safety, precision, and speed in neurosurgery and orthopedic procedures. Surgical operations that involve bone cutting have always risks that might lead to soft tissue injuries, causing complications, disabilities, hospitalisation costs, loss of work time, and even deaths. Surgify has established a breakthrough with the launch of its patented Halo technology, a tissue-selective bone-cutting innovation. Surgify targets to set new bone-surgery standards and improve surgical outcomes worldwide. 

The technology was originally developed in a collaboration between Aalto University and the Department of Neurosurgery in Helsinki University Hospital (HUS). The first surgeries were successfully performed in 2021, and since then the results have been extremely promising.

“In case of Surgify the market potential was clear from the very beginning. I mean surgeries without soft tissue damages with a clear recuring revenue opportunity is an obvious billion-dollar market. Founders take particularly good care at engaging and listening their investors, while at the same time making independent informed decisions. Furthermore, I have rarely encountered a team that can plan and pay attention to the details as well as Surgify team does.” – Juho Risku, Partner and Co-founder of Butterfly Ventures

In Finland, the Halo technology is already in use in several university hospitals, and first surgeries are being arranged in Sweden. Surgify targets the international market with its product, main geographical areas being Northwestern Europe and the USA. The focus is on neuro, spine, and ENT operations, which are growing due to the rise in surgical procedure volumes and the aging population.

“The collaboration with Butterfly has been really fruitful and effective. The funding received from Butterfly has been important all the way from the first functional prototypes to launching the product to the market. Besides the funding, Butterfly has been really helpful in networking, coaching the founders, as well as in various important operational matters.” – Visa Sippola, CEO and Co-founder of Surgify

The latest funding round, worth €1 million, was closed in 2022. Additionally, Surgify received a €1 million Horizon grant in October 2023. Next, the company seeks to scale their market presence and realize the product roadmap; both EU MDR and FDA 510(k) approvals are expected in 2024.

Founders
Visa Sippola, Shahab Haeri, Juho Carpén, Jukka Kreander

Office
Espoo, Finland

Details
Founded: 2017
Revenue: 8k€ (2022)
Personnel: 8 (2022)

Financing
Butterfly invested: 2017
Total financing to date: 7.5M€
Last round: 1M€ (2022)
Other investors: Innovestor, Cascara Ventures, Mediona Growth Partner, Leena Niemistö, other VCs and angels

24.10.2018

Naava redefines the air we breathe indoors and creates healthier and happier workplaces. Indoor environment can stop us from performing at our best. Naava Smart Active Green Wall purifies air from harmful chemicals – and reconnects humanity with nature. In addition to addressing a 500 billion health problem, Naava Smart Active Green Wall has been shown to improve the work force productivity by over 20%. By 2025 Naava is going enable a billion people to breathe Nordic healthy forest air indoors everyday.

“Buttefly Ventures invested in Naava in Q2/2014. While the market opportunity was obvious, we were very impressed with the team, particularly their ability to put together such a complex product and secure the first customers at very high, over 90%, test to purchase ratio. Visit to the Naava factory was also instrumental. My breathing felt lighter and I felt rejuvenated when I entered in their assembly line with couple of dozen Naava units in test use. That very real experience absolutely convinced me.” – Juho Risku, Co-founder and Partner of Butterly Ventures

After the investment development has been rapid. Naava made over a million of annual revenue in 2015, almost doubled that for 2016 and is increasing the pace on 2017. Since the investment they have opened several offices in Finland, Sweden and US, as well as a production facility in US.

“Butterfly Ventures has been invaluable investor for us. They were instrumental particularly after the first investment round. For instance, when we had a bit of issues in investor communications and board work, they were the ones who helped us to restore the mutual trust and a great working atmosphere. They were also the first ones who committed to follow-on financing. I think that due to close co-operation they just knew better. Overall our co-operation has always been constructive and supportive to us entrepreneurs.  It is very easy to recommend Butterfly Ventures to my fellow entrepreneurs.” – Aki Soudunsaari, CEO of Naava

In April 2017 Naava announced a financing worth of 5.4M€, which was a combination of a more traditional financing round of 3.2M€ and a crowd funding round worth of 2.2M€. The crowd funding round was one of the largest ones in the history of Finland.

Right now one of the major focus areas is the scaling the operations in the US. Preparations for Asia entry have also begun.

Founders

Aki Soudunsaari, Niko Järvinen, Mika Tyrväinen

Offices

Oulu, Jyväskylä, Helsinki (Finland), Stockholm (Sweden), New Jersey, New York (USA)

Details

Founded: 2011
Revenue: 1.8M€, 2016
Personnel: 54 full time, 19 part time

Financing

Butterfly invested: Q2/2014
Total financing to date: 8.7M€
Last round: 5.4M€, Q2/2017
Other investors: Pepins, SITRA, Delos

Contact

naava.io info@nullnaava.io https://www.linkedin.com/company/naava https://www.facebook.com/breathenaava https://twitter.com/breathenaava https://www.instagram.com/breathenaava/

13.1.2020

Cerenion is a healthcare company that has developed the only practical solution for measuring brain function in intensive care. Cerenion C-TREND™is a software solution that combines electroencephalogram (EEG) measurement with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. There are no comparable products on the market: the technology is the first clinically validated and profoundly practical method that offers reliable information on the condition of the brain. The innovation increases the quality of intensive care and simultaneously decreases costs. It has immense potential in the intensive care market, which is estimated at €200 billion globally.

“The funding from Butterfly has supported us in the development of our C-TREND™ medical software technology that reveals the status of the brain as one simple score. In addition, it has supported the development of ISO13854-compliant quality management system that is required for operating in the medical technology market. The collaboration with Butterfly Ventures has provided us with some good contacts, business advice as well as legal support. Primarily the collaboration has been very smooth.” – Timo Koskela, CEO of Cerenion

Cerenion is led by a research team from the University of Oulu, and it has signed first agreements with EEG device vendors, such as Bittium. The company has filed 12 intellectual property applications globally, and it has been awarded three key patents related to brain monitoring technology in the USA, Europe and Japan.

“We decided to invest in the company because the technology has sustainable competitive advantage based on research, and the team has deep knowledge in the domain. They have years of experience in the respective technologies as well as patient work. The solution requires extensive experience in several domains to develop, which makes the innovation very special. It increases the efficiency of patient care and doesn’t require changes into the treatment methods. It’s also scalable as it’s not tight to only one hardware used for measuring EEG.” – Ville Heikkinen, Partner at Butterfly Ventures

In September 2019, Cerenion closed a pre-A funding round of €2 million. The funding will be used to start sales operations in Europe and to integrate the software into other manufacturers’ products. The company is also preparing for an expansion to the U.S. market.

Founders
Timo Koskela, Jukka Kortelainen, Eero Väyrynen, Ilkka Juuso

Office
Helsinki and Oulu (Finland)

Details
Founded: 2017
Revenue: 0, 2018
Personnel: 10

Financing
Butterfly invested: Q1/2018, Q3/2019
Total financing to date: ~3M€
Last round (Q3/2019): 2M€
Other investors: Icebreaker.vc, Springvest

Contact

cerenion.com info@nullcerenion.com https://www.linkedin.com/company/cerenion/

28.10.2018

KNL Networks is a communications company that has developed the first alternative to satellite systems for the maritime industry. Using the company’s breakthroughs in HF radio, KNL Networks has built a secure mesh network to provide reliable data communication anywhere in the globe. With low fixed costs and always-on connectivity, KNL Network’s market opportunity is to be the core of maritime digitalization.

“It was roughly two years before the investment, in late 2012, when we first met the Butterfly Ventures. At the time we really didn’t need the money. However, the numerous discussions we had were valuable and we liked their cooperative approach. For instance, they helped us on our business model. One of the main reasons why we took Butterfly Ventures along when we closed our seed round in 2014 was the trust built during those early days. It was a right decision, it’s not just the financing, but the kind of help and the quality of cooperation, the investors bring in that matters.” (Toni Lindén, CEO of KNL Networks)

With the seed round, KNL Networks developed and protected a huge technology base necessary for the service. Additionally, the initial product versions were developed and significant pilot customers were secured.

“It’s very rare that you encounter such a transformative solution for a fairly well-established market, such as communications, that also enables a market entry at a global scale without critical mass challenges. We were impressed, not just the market, but the technology itself as well as the way KNL Networks had secured the IPRs. We were even more impressed by the quality of the team, they’re nice people, yet very professional. It’s a joy to work with such a team.” (Juho Risku, Co-founder and Partner of Butterfly Ventures)

The unique market opportunity and company’s extraordinarily deep knowledge of the field ensured the roughly 9M€ A-round in fall 2016, one of the largest in the Scandinavia of that year. By the end of 2016, they were already making over half a million in annual revenue.

In the end of 2020, KNL Networks was acquired by multinational Telenor Group, one of the world’s largest mobile telecommunications companies.

Founders

Toni Lindén, Matti Raustia, Teemu Vanninen

Offices

Oulu, Helsinki (Finland), Oslo (Norway)

Details

Founded: 2011
Revenue: 0.6M€, 2019
Personnel: 22

Financing

Butterfly invested: Q3/2014
Total financing to date: 15M€
Last round: Q3/2016, 9M€
Other investors: Inventure, Creandum

Contact

kyynel.net info@nullkyynel.net https://www.facebook.com/KNLNetworks https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/10257619 https://twitter.com/KNLNetworks

30.10.2018

Traditional video search technologies are based on keywords and thin layer of manually generated metadata. Valossa uses artificial intelligence to facilitate natural deep content discovery. They enable automated yet very detailed real-time video metadata generation at scene level. Their video AI can detect and identify for instance people, speech, emotions, places, objects etc. This rich metadata, essentially enables computers to understand what’s going on, which in turn is a key enabler for improved human computer interaction. Obviously, the story is bigger than just video search and retrieval, which itself alone is a billion-dollar industry. In addition, there are numerous use cases, where such in-depth understanding is needed, from advanced user interfaces to self-driving cars.

“Butterfly Ventures was instrumental when we founded Valossa. While there were several years of research and technology development in the University of Oulu behind us, they have been with us from the day the company was founded. Before the investment it was mostly about getting customer validation, business models and proper business structures, including contractual help such as IP-transfer agreements. That hasn’t changed after the investment. It’s not just the money, they also share our vision and we appreciate especially the way they offer valuable, hands-on support. They are front line players.” (Mika Rautiainen, CEO of Valossa)

Before the investment, Valossa was a research team in the University of Oulu. Since 2010 Valossa technology has been used to analyze more than 300 000 TV programs and 70 000 English language movies. Butterfly Ventures has been involved with the Valossa more than year before it was founded. Valossa has filed the patents on key technologies and shortly after investment they also piloted the technology with Yle, the national broadcasting company of Finland. The financing also enabled creation of their first product, Valossa AI analysis engine, including the beta customer acquisition for it.

“Artificial intelligence is one of the major transformative forces that’s changing the world right now. Butterfly Ventures invested into Valossa because of the elegant AI driven solution for a problem that has a billion-dollar market opportunity. Furthermore, their team is ambitious, deep in the domain with several PhDs and capable of reflecting the market demand, while relying their own technology stack. Furthermore, market is hot, we see that Valossa will become household name for video analysis technology.” (Ville Heikkinen, Partner of Butterfly Ventures)

In Q3/2017 Valossa closed a 1.7M€ million financing round. The financing will be used to leap further ahead on the product side, as well as acquisition of large international reference customers.

Founders

Mika Rautiainen, Otso Kassinen, Henri Huttunen, Arto Heikkinen, Jukka Holappa, Karita Kasurinen, Sami Huttunen

Offices

Oulu (Finland)

Details

Founded: 2015
Revenue (2016): <0.5M€
Personnel: 9

Financing

Butterfly invested: Q1/2015
Total financing to date: 2,3M€
Last round (Q3/2017): 1.7M€
Other investors: 01 Ventures, Reaktor Ventures

Contact

valossa.com www.whatismymovie.com https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/10190539/ https://www.facebook.com/ValossaLabs https://twitter.com/ValossaInc