SADE Innovations was established in 2017 by former Nokia employees. After a few IoT projects, the company set out to develop its own solution from its expertise, which has made it successful in the sub-contracting business of product development projects.
Sade Innovations has its origins in the shutdown of Microsoft’s Salo unit in 2015. The town soon started to recover from the crash, and many new technology companies emerged there. One of them was the US-based start-up Nuviz Inc., which established an R&D center in Salo and hired a group of engineers with Nokia-Microsoft background to develop a transparent head-up display for motorcycle helmet.
Nuviz ran into difficulties in 2017, but the company’s personnel decided to keep the team together and start selling their expertise as subcontractors. In September 2017, they established a new company, SADE Innovations, with nearly all Nuviz Salo employees as owners.
A licensable platform developed from a tested solution
In the beginning, SADE Innovations did many miscellaneous product development projects, for instance mobile applications, but then focused on IoT projects. IoT solutions usually consist of similar parts: cloud service, a device connected to the internet, applications for handling the data coming to the cloud and controlling the device, as well as secure data connections and updates for device software.
”The course of the project was always similar. After having done a couple of projects, we wanted to bring more value for the customer, as well as new challenges for the developers. We then decided to build this collection of software and hardware modules into our own proprietary, licensable solution, and called it IoT Platform,” explains SADE Innovations CEO Juha Kuosa.
”With the solution, IoT projects get a quick start. There is no need to do same things over and over again, development work takes off immediately and we can better focus on the customer’s business needs right from the beginning. High quality is in place, since the same codebase has been used in many projects,” he continues.
Fruitful collaboration with IoT Forge
When the first demo version of IoT Platform was ready, SADE Innovations turned to IoT Forge, whose team members they knew from the Nokia-Microsoft times already. ”Initially, we only applied for funding, but soon realized that IoT Forge offers much more help. In addition to sparring our concept, they brought in the market and customer angle. Our cooperation has been fruitful,” says Juha.
The project began in January 2018. Every now and then, the SADE Innovations team visited the IoT Forge in Keilalahti Espoo to show demos and to build prototypes, in addition to which the Forge team made mechanical parts and some measurements for them. The development project was completed this autumn, and the name of the solution was changed from IoT Platform to SADE IoT Booster.
Several IoT solutions already based on SADE IoT Booster
With the help of SADE IoT Booster, customized IoT solutions can be built in a fast and cost-efficient way, without compromising on quality. The solution has already been used in several customer projects, including L7Drive’s solution for connecting electric vehicles to cloud using cellular data connectivity, Silmux Oy’s Silmu chair for public spaces, with integrated sensors for the maintenance of optimal conditions, and Sensoan’s scalable IoT gateway solution with massive amounts of wireless sensors connected to cloud.
SADE IoT Booster has also been utilized in developing corona testing. Coronavirus infection can soon be measured and analyzed quickly in exhaled breath gas with a breathlyzer developed by the Tampere-based company Deep Sensing Algorithms, DSA. SADE Innovations supplied the electronics, software and cloud services for the device, and the development work was based on SADE IoT Booster.
”Our cooperation with IoT Forge continues with customer concepts. Forge’s team of experts deals with a wide variety of companies, and they immediately saw other applications for our solution. In this way, we have received several valuable customer contacts with whom we are working,” concludes Juha.
FACT BOX
Juha’s learnings from working with IoT Forge
- You need a working concept with chances of commercial success
- Your idea must be sensible for the company and suit its operations
- Be prepared to answer questions honestly and openly
- Take improvement suggestions into account
- It pays off to be brave and to believe in your own thing
Company information
Sade Innovations, based in Salo IoT Campus, is a company offering product development services. It has had over 60 customer projects for 40 companies in three years.
Established: in September 2017.
Personnel: 25 employees, 34 owners. A commitment program in place, in which new employees get shares after one year of employment relationship.
Products: Electronics and mechanics design, industrial design, IoT solutions, cloud services, application development, concepting and system design.