There Corporation announced last week closing of a 4,5 million investment round from Power Fund II managed by VNT Management and the merger with the Comsel team from Vaasa (a link to press release).
There, located in Vaasa, Tampere and Helsinki, now employs a total of fifteen people, ten of which come from Nokia and Comsel with a stake in the company. The new CEO Kaj Rönnlund was hired outside.
There Corporation was founded in May 2009 by the management team of the Nokia Smart Home program to commercialize the mobile and platform technology developed during the past three years in Nokia. The aim has been to build ground-breaking solutions with a network of partners around the scalable ThereGate (previously Home Control Center (HCC) platform). ThereGate is a technology-independent open Linux-based platform that supports the most common smart home technologies. Adding intelligence and grid networking to home applicants helps homeowners to save energy and money with little effort.
There’s a general platform that will now be accomplished with Comsel’s experience on the areas of smart metering and energy grid solutions for Nordic customers. If utilities would also have an access to the smart grid that goes into the home, they would better and more efficiently manage peak demands.
I had a brief discuss with There’s Kari Rantanen yesterday and he told me that There’s strategy focuses now on integrated customer solutions in the areas of energy metering, grids and buildings.  The partner network in the first stage include Nordic energy utilities, energy meter manufacturers, service providers in the energy and real estate segment. The first pilot solutions are expected to be release in early 2010.
This was a great track also for Technopolis, hosting now Nokia’s non-core IPR spinout platform. Further, Technopolis announced that four new companies in Finland have now been founded through this platform, at the average rate of one spinout per month. Link to release.
