Interview with Hammerkit CEO Mark Sorsa-Leslie

In the wake of the recent financing round of € 1,25 million raised by Hammerkit Ltd, Technopolisonline interviewed the CEO of Hammerkit, Mark Sorsa-Leslie on matters pertaining to the investment and Hammerkit in general.

TPO: Tell us about the financing process: “the road that you travelled”

Hammerkit: It started with a presentation at Software City in Liverpool in November 2010. I met Richard Young from EV and we discussed the potential of North West Fund as an investor. The fund was just starting, so we had to wait a little to get things moving. It was quite a complex deal, as we have both UK and Finnish investors, but we managed to create a deal that worked for everybody. Clearly, the investment approach in the UK is different from Finland, and this was visible in the amount of deal documentation, but the result was good. A long process, but worth it in the end.

TPO: Can you disclose the details of this financing round?

Hammerkit: The North West Fund represented by EV Group (Will Clark) and AXM Venture Capital (David Smith) invested € 500.000, Veraventure invested € 500.000 and Tekes NIY € 250.000.

TPO: Care to elaborate on your feelings following this investment?

Hammerkit: Delighted. I think this now provides us with the gas in the tank to really drive our business forward globally. We have a clear vision; target customers that have a clear requirement and the passion to change this. I think this will allow us to create a Finnish success story to rival the big ones.

TPO: Tell us about the past work by Hammerkit that you’re extremely proud of?

Hammerkit: I am extremely proud of my team. They have worked tirelessly to build the platform and our business. We have been through extremely difficult situations, but when you have great people they rise to the challenge. I am also proud of the work we have completed, not least for Technopolis with Technopolisonline. This is a real example of a complex service that can be create more easier and more quickly that with traditional coding. I am also really happy that we have helped clients like Hill+Knowlton and Edelman to do digital in a more intelligent way. We like to refer to it as “lean digital production” and I think that going forward we are going to benefit from the need of the industry to turn to repeatable solutions rather than trying to hand-craft every web project from scratch.

TPO: What are the innovative functionalities of the new product?

Hammerkit: Hammerkit is the only end-to-end digital production network that includes everything from front end retail to back end development in a single cloud-based solution. We call it the CloudStore. We developed the Cloudstore to enable PR agencies to generate new revenue by allowing them agency to undertake digital projects more easily. We deliver a private appstore, a bit like the Apple AppStore, to their business globally and enable them to produce services once then resell them throughout their network of offices. This means they will be able to reduce the costs of production, improve the quality of deliveries and extend the range of digital services they can offer without having to worry about technology, talent or timetables. The key features are:

1.    GATHER ALL YOUR WEB PROJECTS GLOBALLY INTO A SINGLE DIGITAL LIBRARY
2.    HIGHLIGHT BEST SELLERS
3.    ORDER REPEATABLE SOLUTIONS WITH ONE CLICK
4.    AUTOMATICALLY CREATE CLIENT DIGITAL PORTFOLIOS
5.    TRACK ORDER PROGRESS AND REVIEW PRODUCTION IN REAL-TIME

TPO: What’s next for Hammerkit?

Hammerkit: We will implement Lean Digital Production for our clients and then share the methodology with agencies and developers that want to learn how to produce repeatable solutions.

TPO: Will Hammerkit become the next Rovio and will you become the new “Mighty Eagle”?

Hammerkit: In our field, I hope we will. We aim to become the market leader for repeatable solution delivery to the global PR and marketing industry.

TPO: Are you looking for new talent?

Hammerkit: You betcha! We are hiring right now and are looking for sales, production and development people that have the track-record, talent and tenacity to join a team that is heading to the top. All the roles are available at www.hammerkit.com/careers.

TPO: What advice would you give to a young start-up entrepreneur that is looking for financing?

Hammerkit: Be careful not to take your eye of the ball when going through the financing process. It is so time consuming that you need to be sure that: a) you really need to raise the capital, b) you have a clear vision for your business, and c) you are happy to accept 100 “NOs” to get a yes. Choose your financier based on their ability to allow you to leverage their business assets and acumen, not on the amount they are prepared to invest.

TPO: What is the one most important thing?

Hammerkit: Patience…all good things come to he who waits!

TPO: Anything else that you would like to tell to Technopolisonline followers?

Hammerkit: The startup scene in Helsinki is super hot right now. I hope that we are amongst the winners when we look back, but at least I will be able to say I was one of the ones that tried. That’s the key. We all need to gives things a try, stretch ourselves and create businesses that are successful and fun to be in. Finland is the best place in the world to create a startup, as it teaches you to be disciplined, deliver on promises and make things work with limited resources. Those are the keys to success.

Hammerkit Secures Funding for UK Expansion

Finnish based cloud technology provider Hammerkit Ltd has secured an investment round of € 1.25 million. The company provides repeatable, digital solutions for the public relations and marketing industry and will use the investment to establish it’s Cloudstore business in the UK. In October 2010 Hammerkit opened an office in the Liverpool Science Park and this investment will be used to create a sales and production centre there.

This round was financed by multiple investors with the North West Fund for Venture Capital, managed by EV, and the North West Fund for Digital & Creative, managed by AXM Venture Capital, investing approximately € 500,000 between them. Veraventure participated with an equal amount of capital (€ 500,000) and the reimaining € 250,000 was provided by the NIY programme of Tekes, the Finnish funding agency for technology and innovation.

Hammerkit, established five years ago in Helsinki by a team of IT professionals, provides a cloud-based web development toolkit and Cloudstore that make it faster and easier to build professional-grade websites and social media applications. The key is that any site can be launched as a repeatable solution, effectively turning one-off web projects into potential best-selling digital products. Its Cloudstore has been piloted with the two global PR agencies, Edelman in Latin America and Hill+Knowlton Strategies in Europe.

Mark Sorsa-Leslie, CEO of Hammerkit, elaborated the vision of Hammerkit in the company’s press release; “The digital industry is crying out for more effective ways to produce the services that clients need. We developed the Cloudstore to meet that need and ensure that large agencies can leverage their scale to produce digital services effectively. We also want to help them join up their creative talent to ensure the best, most repeatable solutions are shared across their company to increase revenue and profit margins. We’re excited to launch the next phase of Hammerkit and the creation of a new digital industry hub in Liverpool, given its abundance of digital talent and proximity to MediaCityUK”.

Technopolisonline has a close working relationship with Hammerkit as it has and still is providing its cloud technology for Technopolis with Technopolisonline. Due to this we are elated about this recent round and will be posting an interview we conducted with the Mark Sorsa-Leslie on the investment and Hammerkit in general.

MoneyTalks Opens the Year in Otaniemi

This year’s first MoneyTalks entrepreneur-to-financier pitching and matchmaking event was held in Espoo on January 12th 2012. The event started the year well as it attracted a full crowd of up-and-coming technology start-ups and active investors to Otaniemi. The event was a success as the plentiful crowd witnessed three great 7-minute presentations from Adfore Technologies Ltd, Midaxo Ltd and Energest Group Oü, as well as multiple one-minute power pitches. Distinct and interesting software and mobile solutions were presented to the audience, ranging from business intelligence tools to software for sharing and renting electric cars. After the pitches the networking began and by the looks of it the conversation was active as new and old acquaintances shared their thoughts.

Here are links to the seven minute presentations from Adfore Technologies Ltd and Energest Group Oü accompanied by some information on both. At the moment we are unable to share the presentation of Midaxo Ltd, but we hope to have it up also as soon as possible.

Adfore Technologies Presentation

Adfore Technologies has developed a hyper local marketing and information solution that currently operates under the brand name Tässä.fi in Finland. The solution enables users to find information on close by amenities such as shops, restaurants, and public services anywhere in Finland.

Utilimon Presentation

Energest is an Estonian cleantech start-up specializing in energy technology and software development. Their product Utilimon is a business intelligence tool for measuring the energy consumption of large buildings. The product offers data every five minutes of the buildings energy consumption from all possible sources. This allows property owners and building managers to reduce their utility costs by pinpointing the areas that need improved energy efficiency.

Midaxo Ltd has developed a comprehensive merger and acquisition (M&A) process model that covers all the phases from screening to successful integration. The product is being developed with leading M&A companies and it provides a huge boost for its users process development effort.

The next MoneyTalks events will be held on February 9^th in Tampere and March 13 in Helsinki.

Rightware Announces Gaming Performance Benchmark for OpenGL ES 3.0/Halti

Rightware®, the provider of world’s most widely adopted benchmarking software for mobile phones, tablets and other embedded devices, today announced that it is developing Basemark™ Halti, an OpenGL ES 3.0 / Halti benchmark product slated for launch in 2012. The benchmark continues the popular Basemark™ product line’s graphic products, formerly known as 3DMarkMobile, and will set the new global standard for OpenGL ES 3.0/Halti gaming and graphics performance measurement. Basemark™ Halti will provide a solid performance benchmarking tool to semiconductor companies, device manufacturers, operators, and various other players in the embedded ecosystem across different vertical markets.

Rightware’s objective is to offer industry standard benchmark products that help its customers to identify graphics performance bottlenecks in all phases of development. For this purpose, Rightware has established the Benchmark Development Program (BDP) consisting of renowned and highly respected companies. See more from here.

The core benchmark development team at Rightware has over a decade of experience producing industry leading benchmark products. Since acquiring Futuremark Corporation’s mobile and embedded division in 2009, Rightware has created numerous benchmarks that have been adopted at large by the industry’s leading mobile phone and processor manufacturers. For example, the popular 3DMarkMobile product line was first published in 2006 and was later re-branded as Basemark ES family of products. Rightware’s indisputable leadership in mobile and embedded benchmarking is now further solidified with the introduction of Basemark™ Halti.

Tero Sarkkinen, CEO of Rightware, sees the company’s announced product as a major step for the whole embedded ecosystem: “Gaming performance benchmarks are a great way to evaluate overall graphics performance of the measured device.  Basemark Halti continues our tradition of providing the most trusted way for the industry to make product design decisions during all phases of development. With Basemark Halti, Rightware continues its track record of providing the most cutting-edge products to the embedded ecosystem and providing our customers unique product to solve graphics performance issues of future’s embedded devices.”

Tero Sarkkinen points out that despite game benchmarks providing a way to measure graphics performance, something more needs to be added for performance analysis of embedded device: “To achieve a holistic, comprehensive understanding of embedded device’s actual performance capabilities, more than just graphics benchmarking is required. Under our extensive Basemark product family, we have a wide coverage of benchmarks to also measure other critical aspects of an embedded device performance. While operating under the same product line, this provides an excellent complementary offering to our customers.”

Basemark™ Halti will support multiple software platforms, enabling its execution on any device supporting Halti/OpenGL ES 3.0. Most importantly, Basemark™ Halti will produce objective and comparable results by offering the identical workload in all platforms.

10th Biannual MoneyTalks Forum Highlights!

Technopolis MoneyTalks Forum turned round numbers as it was arranged for the 10^th time on November 10^th  2011. Once again the event attracted many interesting companies and during the day we truly saw some innovative and impressive ideas from pitching companies. We were also pleased to see many active investors at present who motivated the pitchers to really give their best.

We also heard an enlightening keynote by Iain Jawad about the rise of smart cities and M2M markets. The afternoon one-to-one meetings between pitchers and investors were fruitful and the evening was finished with a relaxed mood at Innoklubi where Kimmo Lahdensivu  from Varaani Works Ltd, was nominated as the best 7-minute pitch. The best 1-minute pitch awared went to Teemu Arina from Meetin.Gs. Congratulations!

What a great MoneyTalks Forum once again! Technopolis would like to thank the sponsors and partners: Docomo Europe, Lexia Ltd, Hermia Ltd, Otaniemi Marketing and also participating companies, investors, Iain Jawad and other participants! MoneyTalks Forum returns next time in May 2012. Stay tuned also for the monthly Technopolis MoneyTalks events. More at www.technopolisonline.com/events

A glance back at the presentations and pitches we saw at MoneyTalks Forum:

During the day we heard 8 company presentations, 7 minutes each:

• Geniem Ltd

CEO Tuomas Kumpula put up a solid presentation for Geniem, a mobile app development platform developer. Their product AppEver provides a cross-platform framework for building apps fast, cost efficiently and with quality. Geniem AppEver enables advertisers, publishers, agencies and online communities to deploy faster and better mobile applications cross-platform. Kumpula highlighted Geniem’s strong position in the mobile app development market and thus the growth prospects for the firm seem bright.

• Lizard Technology Ltd

Lizard Technology brought us a little closer to the year 3000 as CEO Karsten Vandrup presented their technology with a ToyStory-like robot that recognised voice location. The robot’s key feature was its sound based location technology that made the robot to obey commands and walk towards the voice. The company’s sound localization technologies ASL and VSS are based on patented audio signal processing methods which are originally implemented after extended studies on the hearing of lizards. Their technology and product seemed ready and the company is ready to commercialize them for robotics and automation business.

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• Fambit Ltd

CEO Pertti Kasanen introduced their social media service that offers improved communication within families. Fambit provides services such as group messaging, shared photo frames and family finder. Fambit already has 6000 family users and is looking for funding to initiate their fierce international growth. This could be a pioneer for parents who want to connect with their internet and mobile devices addicted children.

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• Fastrax Ltd

Chairman of Fastrax, Pekka Ruusunen, showed an enthusiastic presentation about the company’s navigation products. The company manufactures Global Navigation Satellite Systems receivers and develops software for enhanced satellite navigation and for cost efficient end application development. The product portfolio consists of multiple GNSS receiver modules and GPS antenna modules, novel pure Software GNSS solutions for minimized cost and optimized GNSS functionality in consumer devices.

• Existor Russia Ltd

Imagine practising foreign language by having a conversation with a robot without any fear of embarrassment. CEO Ilia Zaitsev gave a compelling presentation of how a human could actually do this with an intelligent machine using Existor’s technology. Technopolis Online experimented this and ended up spending a long time interviewing artificial intelligence avatar on Existor’s website. The AI technology is already completed and it can be used in education, entertainment and enterprises. All they need is funding to launch on the market.

• Varaani Works Ltd

CEO Kimmo Lahdensivu introduced us a carefree personal cloud storage solution Varaani Cloud Hub. It provides an easy way to store, share and access content anywhere with any device. Varaani’s product will provide a more comprehensive solution than the competitors and target to a wide range of devices while offering up to 1 terabyte of recording space. Lahdensivu’s presentation about the company was convicting enough to receive the best rating from the 7-minute pitchers in the event!

• Flirtic Ltd

Flirtic, an Estonian new generation online dating service invited us to look into the dating zone with a fresh view. CEO Andres Susi gave a vivid presentation about how their service makes it easy to meet, have fun and flirt with new people online. Flirtic incorporates the most popular and addictive features of social networks,  including messaging, wall posting, ‘likes’ and entertaining games and quizzes. The service already has strong market shares in Serbia, Estonia and Russia and aims to expand to US and other western countries.

Technopolis Online tried the service and found that the quizzes actually made the site very compelling. Our sphere of matchmaking just leaped a notch farther.

• Hookie Technologies Ltd

Hookie’s goal is to connect physical activity recorded by mobile phones to social media. CEO  Hannu Puolitaival presented the audience a technology that captivates the users physical activity without battery consuming gps connection. The solution is extremely scalable and can be utilized by game developers, marketers and insurance companies. Hookie immediately found potential synergy opportunities with Flirtic at the event. Excellent!

In addition to 7 minute company presentations above, we also heard 6 interesting one-minute power pitches.

Petri Hiissa from Intoloop presented their child journal which is accessible online or through mobile applications that parents can securely share with friends and family.

Teemu Arina from Meetin.gs put up a memorable one minute juggler show to pitch their cloud-based internet service. It is aimed for busy business people and the service makes online and face-to-face meetings more efficient and measurable. Arina’s exceptional presentation impressed the audience and it was rated as the best 1-minute pitch.

Juha Väisänen from Fantastec introduced Polar Heroes, a children’s educative 3D online game world with mobile games and branded extensions.

Thomas Grönholm from Skyhood presented their modern web technology based service for the recruitment market.

Jouni Salonen from Tuotantoyhtiö Tuokio enlightened us about their tablet PC games for socializing.

And finally Timo Pietilä from Zonear pitched their strategy of creation of adaptive and customizable HTML5 maps, used in a wide range of application from location-based games to geosocial marketing campaigns.

That’s about it, see you next time!

Finnish Industry Investment and FoF Growth Invest in the New Cleantech-focused Power Fund III

The Finnish venture capital company VNT Management has raised 42 million euros at the first closing of its new venture capital fund Power Fund III. Finnish Industry Investment, FoF Growth, the Finnish pension fund Varma, and private investors have made commitments in the new fund.

Power Fund III invests in early and growth stage technology companies primarily in Finland and in other selected European countries. The fund invests in new energy technology and focuses on power electronic applications in particular. The fund will seek approximately 15 companies for its initial investments. Investments will be carried out as minority investments.

Jarmo Saaranen, Chairman of VNT Management comments: “We are looking for companies that have potential to succeed on a global scale. They should have strong technology and a functioning prototype, as well as a team that has the right amount of knowledge, experience, and drive for business development. We are particularly interested in Blue Ocean strategies. We believe that renewable energy production will grow significantly, the efficiency of traditional energy forms will receive more emphasis and that we will see more investments in energy efficiency in the future.”

In addition to energy and climate regulations, the strong growth in developing countries’ energy demand has aroused interest in the cleantech sector and made it grow rapidly. This, in turn, has created the need for new solutions in clean energy production and energy efficient solutions.

“Power Fund III has found a niche in energy technology that uses Finnish expertise in power engineering in a promising way,” says Riitta Jääskeläinen, Investment Director at Finnish Industry Investment.

“Power Fund III continues the tradition that VNT Management has managed to successfully create through its two previous funds. The management’s strong background and expertise is reflected in the fund’s narrow focus area. VNT Management is currently one of the most experienced venture capital investors in the cleantech sector in Europe,” says Esko Torsti, Chairman of the investment council of FoF Growth. 

MTV3 Acquired Eat.fi

MTV3, a Finnish main stream television channel and internet entertainment hub, has announced that it has acquired Eat.fi, a leading restaurant recommendation portal in Finland. Eat.fi was founded in 2008 to provide easy and rich experience in discovering restaurants in major Finnish cities. Currently the service attracts 50,000 weekly visitors.

MTV3 is planning to merge Eat.fi with its own Makuja website, which focuses on providing cooking recipes. The service has collected over 8,000 recipes to-date and it’s one of the leading cooking focused websites in Finland with over 150,000 weekly users.

With the acquisition, MTV3 plans to combine these two services, striving to make one all-encompassing food portal. MTV3’s head of web services, Henrik Laine, comments: “Our goal is to build a leading site in Finland, which provides everything food and restaurant related information to end users.”

Furrther details about the acquisition size was not disclosed. The founder of Eat.fi, Tina Aspiala, will transfer to MTV3 as a Development Manager of Eat.fi. 

Ubisoft® Acquires Redlynx, Creator Of Popular Digital Brand “Trials”

Ubisoft announced that it has acquired RedLynx, the Finland-based creator of the renowned digital brand “Trials”.

Founded in 2000, RedLynx is a pioneer in digital games, developing more than 100 high-quality titles for a wide range of digital distribution channels, including PC, consoles, mobile phones, tablets and interactive TV. After initial success on PC and wide acclaim for its highly realistic, physics-based game mechanics, Trials, RedLynx’s flagship brand, has now become one of the best-selling games ever on Xbox™ LIVE Arcade, with over two million paid downloads across the main game and both DLCs. Trials Evolution, the next title in the franchise, will be released in the coming months. The recent DrawRace 2 for the iPhone and iPad was lauded by both press and gamers for its innovative physics-based touch-controls and asynchronous multiplayer gameplay. Upon its release, DrawRace2 became the best-selling racing game in both Europe and the United States.

Commenting on the acquisition, Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer at Ubisoft, stated: "The team at RedLynx has developed exceptionally strong digital brands that stand out for their high replay value, their long tail sales and their multiplatform positioning. We are delighted to welcome RedLynx to the Ubisoft family. Their expertise in asynchronous online games and physics-based game mechanics provides us with a great opportunity to bring their powerful brands, most notably Trials, to an even broader range of fast-growing digital platforms."

"We were attracted by Ubisoft’s focus on creativity and quality, and the fact that they base their long-term strategy on both the traditional and digital distribution video game markets. The reality of today’s market is not about platforms, it’s about creating excellent gaming experiences that consumers can play on any device or screen they like.” stated Tero Virtala, chief executive officer of RedLynx. “As part of the Ubisoft team, RedLynx will be able to focus even more intently on creating stand-out, excellent brands that push the boundaries of online gaming in many new growth areas. With Ubisoft, a wider audience will get the chance to enjoy our games, we‘llgenerate more value for our brands, and also leverage our experience more broadly in digital distribution channels."

Following the acquisitions of Massive Entertainment, Nadeo, Quazal and Owlient, RedLynx represents the continuation of Ubisoft’s focus on strengthening its online expertise and infrastructure in order to expand its portfolio and use of new online business models. The success of The Smurfs & Co social game on Facebook, the upcoming launch of the AAA project Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Online in open beta, the enthusiasm of the TrackMania community, the success of The Settlers Online in Germany and the Uplay online services platform are the most recent implementations of this digital strategy.

Previous Ubisoft acquisitions in the online segment:
- November 2008: acquisition of Massive Entertainment, renowned for their specialty in creating multiplayer games. Massive is collaborating on or responsible for the development of several ambitious unannounced projects.
- October 2009: acquisition of Nadeo, creator of cult hit multiplayer driving game, TrackMania. TrackMania 2 Canyon and ManiaPlanet has been recently released.
- November 2010: acquisition of Quazal, a leader in the creation of online technical solutions. Assassin’s Creed implements Quazal technology for its multiplayer mode, which received the Game Critics Award for "Best Online Game" at E3 2010.
- July 2011: acquisition of free-to-play game developer Owlient. The team at Owlient has extensive expertise in the management of online game-playing communities, and their Howrse brand has almost two million monthly active users.

The Millions Strong Sports Tracker Community Expands to Windows Phone

The Nokia-born and now startup-based hit app Sports Tracker will launch on Windows Phone in November.

The much-anticipated Windows Phone version of Sports Tracker comes with the category-leading tracking features familiar from the Symbian, Android and iPhone versions. In addition to tracking the app comes with a comprehensive training diary, ability to share workouts to Facebook, Twitter and the Sports Tracker online community as well as cloud backup of tracked activities to sports-tracker.com.

"We are extremely thrilled to bring Sports Tracker to Windows Phone. We see Windows as a very exciting platform especially now with the advent of Nokia's amazing new Lumia -series of Windows Phone devices." says Mr. Ykä Huhtala, CTO and one of the founders of Sports Tracker.

App features

• Full tracking features as in the award-winning Symbian app and iPhone / Android

◦       Distance

◦       Duration

◦       Speed

◦       Average speed and pace

◦       Max speed

◦       Energy spent (kCal)

• Training Diary for workout data analysis
• Diary sync to sports-tracker.com service for further analysis
• Sharing of workouts to Facebook, Twitter and the Sports Tracker community

Sports Tracker for Windows Phone will launch in November 2011.

FinNode Russia Rewards Winners of the BIT Contest

In November 2011 Finnode Russia and Lappeenranta Innovation Oy organizes educational and matchmaking tour for talented young entrepreneurs - finalists of Russia’s biggest innovation contest BIT (Business of Innovative Technologies) from various regions of Russian Federation with possibility to meet private and governmental investors presented in Finnish market. The entrepreneurs will take part in MoneyTalks Forum, well known in Europe, which will be held in Otaniemi Espoo.

Finnode Russia and Lappeenranta Innovation Oy are running the project “Finnish-Russian Innovation Cooperation – Commercialization of Innovations”. The project receives funding from the Finnish Foreign Ministry neighborhood cooperation resources.

The project aims to create an identification – and commercialization mechanism for Russian innovations. The goal for the project is to support Russian entrepreneurs and companies, wishing to bring their innovative ideas to European markets and at the same time to create new business opportunities for Finnish companies by exploiting Russian innovations.

During the first year of project’s operation a number of high-tech cases has been identified and introduced to potential Finnish partners with excellent results – 5 companies from Russia has established their entities in Finland with the aim to enter European market.