Indoor positioning startup Iiwari raises 1,5m€ seed funding lead by Voima Ventures to commercialize groundbreaking research in UWB technology developed by VTT.
Kajaani, Finland. Iiwari, a Finnish based indoor positioning technology company has raised 1,5m€ seed funding in order to accelerate commercialization of its indoor positioning tech solutions. The round is led by the deep tech fund Voima Ventures and US & UK based strategic angel investors.
Iiwari’s commercial offering is based on Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology research conducted by the team at VTT Technical Research Center of Finland ltd. The company has purchased the key licenses from VTT in order to operate globally and become the global category leader in indoor positioning solutions.
Indoor positioning market is growing globally across multiple verticals from retail to smart offices and hospitals. Until now different application and service providers have struggled with expensive, inaccurate and unreliable positioning infrastructure technologies. Iiwari’s UWB positioning technology provides higher accuracy and substantial cost efficiency than competing solutions (including WiFi and Bluetooth). Furthermore, the company has developed the technology to track unlimited number of items simultaneously giving a strong competitive edge compared to other UWB solutions available. Cost efficiency and accuracy which Iiwari is able to provide to its customers further more open up new use cases and application areas for positioning data that can be utilized in various industries.
”Iiwari is going to market with a state of the art, reliable, UWB Indoor positioning system and great platform partners. Our scalable, affordable and super accurate indoor positioning service will enable our partners to create solutions at all areas of life whether it relates to security, healthcare, retail, logistics, mining etc. This funding round enables us to take a giant leap to go to market with our technology with our existing partners and new to come.” says Ville Kolehmainen, the Founder and CEO of Iiwari Tracking Solutions Oy.
“We are extremely excited to start the growth journey with Iiwari”, says Inka Mero, Founder and Managing Partner of Voima Ventures. “Iiwari’s unique technology can solve the existing bottle necks to enable secure people and asset tracking in a scalable and cost efficient manner while spinning new services for people and businesses.”
About Iiwari
Iiwari is a UWB positioning technology company based in Kajaani. Originating from VTT (Technical Research Center of Finland ltd) the company was founded in 2018 to develop tracking and positioning technology to global markets. The company has a presence in the Nordics as well as the US through it’s integrator network. The company provides cost efficient and accurate positioning and tracking solutions to different industries. www.iiwari.com
About Voima Ventures
Voima Ventures is a €40M deep tech fund that invests purely in startups with deep tech and scientific backgrounds. Voima Ventures’ mission is to solve major global problems by combining science, entrepreneurship, and capital. Industry domains include bio and new materials, medical technologies and life sciences, imaging and optics, IoT and electronics, robotics, software & ICT and AI. In addition, Voima Ventures is managing a portfolio of VTT Ventures with 20 prominent deep tech companies including Solar Foods, Paptic, and Dispelix. Cornerstone investors are VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and European Investment Fund (EIF). The Voima Ventures fund is supported by InnovFin Equity, with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instruments and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) set up under the Investment Plan for Europe. The purpose of EFSI is to help support financing and implementing productive investments in the European Union and to ensure increased access to financing. We are also backed by Finnish private and institutional investors.
