Search On the battlefield, in space or at Rally Estonia. The Estonian companies chosen by the NATO innovation accelerator are developing multifunctional technologies
The original article was published in Delfi (in Estonian) on December 11. We publish the translation with their permission.
Two Estonian startup companies were this year awarded the seal of approval by NATO. One of them works with uninterruptible communications, and the other drives unmanned vehicles into battle.
The NATO DIANA (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic) accelerator, now operating in its second year, announced the next batch of companies that will start to develop their civilian and military dual-use technologies in the next half year. Only one Estonian firm, GaltTec, made it through to selection last year, but this year two Estonian startup companies, Telearmy and Wayren, were chosen.
The innovation accelerator has increased its scale this year. There were five accelerators operating across the alliance last year, but this year there are 13, and the 1300 companies that applied to the programme last year have turned into 2600 this year. The number of companies accepted into the programme has consequently also grown so that where there were 44 last year, there are now over 70 companies from 20 NATO countries.
All the companies chosen for the accelerator will receive 100,000 euros in funding.
Seven of the companies will be starting their development path in Estonia, as the local startups Telearmy and Wayren will be joined here by the foreign companies Scaleout from Sweden, Factiverse from Norway, and ResQuant, IS-Wireless and Microamp Solutions from Poland. They will base their operations in Mustamäe at the Tehnopol Startup Incubator, which leads the accelerator together with Sparkup Tartu Science Park.
The startups chosen for the accelerator will now enter a six-month training programme during which they will all receive 100,000 euros in funding. The best among them can receive up to 300,000 euros more in additional funding after the half year of the programme.
Helping save lives
As mentioned, there were a lot more companies applying for each place this year than there were last year. What was it then about the two Estonian startups that persuaded the committee members to choose them?
The decision-makers at the NATO DIANA innovation accelerator are not sharing their reasons, certainly not publicly and apparently not even to the candidates themselves. The answer to the question may lie though in the challenges that were set this year and that the NATO member states have identified as priority areas for development. These areas were energy and power, data and information security, sensing and surveillance, human health and performance, and critical infrastructure and logistics.
The companies chosen from Estonia seem to fall under the last of these categories.
Telearmy is developing products that have already demonstrated their value on the front line in Ukraine. They are working with technology that can be retrofitted to existing vehicles to allow them to be driven remotely through Starlink or Radiolink from a long distance away and at high speed. Allowing these vehicles, which may carry ammunition to the front, evacuate the wounded or carry out reconnaissance, to be driven securely from a distance saves lives, as it means no actual person needs to be on board the vehicle.
“Telearmy is one of the first companies to make remote vehicle control widespread and accessible for the military. Our technology has already been tested by leading original equipment manufacturers and proven reliable under 4G conditions, as well as on the front line using Starlink, and is being tested in military networks”, said CEO of Telearmy Enn Laansoo jr in September, when the firm was working together with a Ukrainian charity. “Telearmy offers many advantages like easy upgrade of existing vehicles, quick installation, and lower costs than other unmanned solutions”, he added.
Telearmy’s technology can be used not only by the military, but also by companies in logistics and road safety. The leaders of Telearmy were working in Ukraine when this article was being written and could not be reached by Delfi.
Information exchange is critically important
Henry Härm of Wayren, the other company chosen, is able to tell Delfi about why he thinks they were selected. “We provide communications links that cannot be disrupted in the toughest conditions in the world”, he said. This is the key designation of the company and describes clearly and simply what it does. The Wayren platform helps maintain contact in the hardest environments. “In a military context the toughest environment is the battlefield, but there can also be similar challenges in civilian life, such as mining, space or even Rally Estonia”, chuckled Härm.
He further noted that the recent interruptions to GPS that were much talked about showed the benefit of the Wayren platform, because GPS frequencies are not the only ones that enemies might want to jam. And it is just this sort of jamming that the Wayren platform works against.
The company originally came out of the military. Härm used to work at Estonian Cyber Command, where he developed a national battle management system that was designed to digitalise the actions of the army from planning operations to carrying them out. The key point was for everything to work quickly and effectively. But when the system was put into operation during the Kevadtorm exercises, large holes appeared in the communications.
Every minute that is lost in transmitting critical information puts somebody’s life in danger. Our job is to make that time loss as small as possible.
“While the communications at the command post were more or less normal, the units on the battlefield had difficulties with communicating, and so the system was interrupted and it took a long time to exchange information”, said Härm to explain what inspired the creation of the Wayren technology. “This puts the lives of soldiers in danger, because they cannot report the results of shelling for example, or evacuate their wounded, and they have no picture of what is happening around them. Every minute that is lost in transmitting critical information puts somebody’s life in danger. Our job is to make that time loss as small as possible”, he explained.
First Estonia, then the whole world
Wayren actually applied to the NATO innovation accelerator for the second time this year, and it is obvious how much they benefited from the intervening time. Härm believes that an important reason they were chosen this time was that their technology had reached a better level of readiness. “We have done a lot of work with our clients and understood where the pinch points are”, he explained, noting that the company plans to run pilot projects with companies like Enefit and Viru Keemia Grupp alongside its work with the army.
Härm pointed out that the defence priorities currently dominate greatly within the company because that is where the original need for Wayren came from, as did its founder, but the company could have a civilian focus as well as a military one in future, whether that is balanced equally or even a little more in favour of the civilian side.
The fit with the NATO DIANA accelerator was very good because the aim of the programme is to find and accelerate the development across the alliance of innovative technologies that can be used both in everyday life in the civilian world, and also in national defence. “It is clear in the defence industry that technology with both civilian and military application is much better and more cost-effective than technology that only has military use. Purely military technology tends to be extremely complicated solutions that are too specific in their application and produced in small amounts, and that can be too expensive at the end of the day to have much of an impact”, said Härm. “Our ambition is to develop highly advanced defence technology that will put our basic frame in place from which we can start to expand”.
Härm thinks a realistic time frame for expansion is five to seven years. He says that the NATO DIANA accelerator will be extremely helpful for them. “A key point for us is the testing infrastructure that DIANA has, as there are testing centres where we can try out our ideas. The programme also gives access to a lot of resources like experts, networks and infrastructure. If we had to do everything ourselves but with limited resources, it would take a whole two years rather than just six months”, he explained, showing why the accelerator can give additional fuel for companies wanting to reach the stars.
He further observed that the accelerator will give them the chance to make lots of new contacts with end users. They are currently only really in active conversation with the Estonian defence forces, but the company hopes that the programme will let them make contacts in other NATO countries as well. Wayren’s ambitious gaze is roaming far and wide. “Our first goal is to focus on the European market, and the USA can come after that”, said Härm.
He commented that the 100,000 euros they will receive from the accelerator is primarily planned for developing the technology. If the company is actually successful in getting through to the second round of the accelerator, where there is additional funding available of up to 300,000 euros, it plans to add a sales team to the development team.
Companies that have received the funding will start work in December not only in the programme in Estonia, but also in accelerators in Denmark, Italy, Czechia, the Netherlands, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Greece, Canada, and two locations in the USA.
The funding to start the accelerator in Estonia comes from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and the city of Tallinn. Estonian contributors to building the pan-Alliance network of testing centres are Tallinn University of Technology, the University of Tartu, Foundation CR14, the National Defence College, the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences, the Estonian Aviation Academy, and Metrosert.
GaltTec CEO describes participating in the accelerator as a life-changing experience
The only Estonian company accepted to the NATO DIANA innovation accelerator last year was GaltTec, which has successfully gained a further half million euros in investment on top of the original 100,000 euros in funding. “All of the opportunities that have come on top of what NATO DIANA offered are in the region of half a million euros, which is a very good start for a deep-tech company that is still in quite an early phase of development. NATO DIANA definitely played a huge role in raising our profile”, said company CEO Glen Kelp to Delfi.
Interest has been shown in GaltTec in its homeland of Estonia, but also elsewhere in Europe and in North America and Japan, and particularly in the energy sources for drones that it is making. “This is a very hot topic”, said Kelp.
The DIANA accelerator not only provided funding but also a great springboard for GaltTec to leap rapidly and confidently over the high barriers to entry that are faced in the defence industry. The company was earlier not really familiar with exactly how the industry worked, but the programme gave them a crash course in how to roll out their strategy for their dual-use technology.
Kelp believes that being in the NATO DIANA programme was simply life changing, and so he encourages all Estonian businesses starting up in the future to think about how they could also benefit from the innovation accelerator. “Anybody else wanting such a life-changing experience must absolutely take it seriously and go for it. It gave me so much more than I could ever have expected”, he said.
Source: Delfi.ee
By: Grete Põlluste, editor Jete-Ri Jõesaar