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few micrometres, which is important in terms of health applications. For example, it could be used to measure the human heart rate even from the surface of a person’s shirt or trousers. More than that, our technology can reconstruct the cardiac curve and light-cardiogram to help in the analysis of problems in the heart. This application plays a significant role in real- life situations, such as monitoring a driver’s health while driving.


Your company already has a prototype, is gaining clients, and hiring people despite being so young. Tell me the current status of Ladimo? We are working with German car manufacturers as industrial partners (for example Porsche) and we are being funded by some Finnish venture capital companies. Just recently, our application for Horizon 2020 was accepted, so we have received funding from the European Commission as well. Thanks to this, the company is at a fast-growing stage and we can speed up the development by hiring new talents. Now, we have already started


miniaturising the product to the level needed for integration into robotics, thanks to the help of one big international customer. We have secured funding for the next step of our product development, and soon after we get down to a level where the total weight is just a few hundred grams, we can start to implement the sensors in this way. We are currently working closely with industrial partners to boost the fabrication of the product. In fact, we have prepared for serial production manufacturing and are cooperating with a former department of Carl Zeiss. So we are expecting to have miniaturised units before the next Slush investor event, in Helsinki in November.


How many people are involved in the company right now? We have seven employees in our team and an additional five people working on an hourly basis. We also have an advisory board of five professors from three universities that contribute when needed. We just hired the eighth person in our


team and are looking forward to recruiting two software developers before the end of the year. Next year, we will expand our client bases and diversify our applications, so I expect our growth will double in 2020. At such a stage we may have about 20 employees and our hourly basis workers will increase by then, too.


Can you also tell me about your CEO Jouni Halme and how you met him? Jouni is the co-founder of Ladimo and he


www.electrooptics.com | @electrooptics


was instrumental in the creation of the company. Jouni has a strong background in international development. His experience in a start-up company (Nanofoot, a spin-off from the Optoelectronics Research Centre) is very useful because he has a wide range of connections in the laser photonics world and knows the right people and companies. We met in Aalto University during


our research project. Jouni was with Nanofoot at the time in Tampere, and was considering working on something interesting closer to his home in Helsinki. At that time, we were looking for someone to run the company, because the first person tasked to do so did not perform well. When Jouni went to Aalto, he and I sat down and had a discussion and we immediately saw a synergy between us.


I really like this connection between CEO and CTO, as it is a hallmark of a successful company, such as Apple. What are the challenges you have had to deal with the company? There were no tough challenges in the development of the technology, except that the laser source was not produced by the provider of the scanner. We needed that laser source for our sensor and it was one of a kind, but the provider, for some reason, could not provide a replacement. So we talked with some laser diode companies about a replacement and eventually discovered some. However, I found it hard to get investors,


even though our product showed such promise. You need to be consistent always, so that you can eventually secure the funding.


How did you solve the problem of finding an investor? We found it effective to get in touch with investors during events like Slush in Helsinki and Arctic 15. For instance, we got connected with Porsche during Slush 2018. We made presentations during these


investor events and had our booth to provide information about our technology and market strategies. We have also been using demo videos with high-level, yet very simple and informative content.


What advice would you give to young entrepreneurs in the industry? I recommend that young startups should use demo videos in communicating with potential investors. A video is worth a thousand words and can be very effective in telling the investor about your technology. However, the video must be simple and done properly in such a way that a person without a technical background will understand what your technology offers. EO


Join the Electro Optics group on LinkedIn and discover an online resource where those in the photonics industry can discuss issues and products, ask questions and provide answers, and be part of a community.


Electro Optics


Are you looking for a community to discuss the latest developments or share interesting case studies about the photonics industry?


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