This release is a summary of Unikie’s key events for 2020. Unikie Ltd’s official Annual Report and Financial Statements are attached to this release.
The year 2020 was once again a year of strong growth for Unikie Ltd, a software technology for automatically controlled devices developing company. Growth continues under the leadership of the new CEO and with the support of investors.
- The Group’s net sales increased by 23% to EUR 33.1 million in 2020 (2019: EUR 26.9 million). The growth was mainly due to strong growth in the Telecom segment. Despite the difficult operating environment, the company gained significant new customers, and sales developed well.
- The Group’s EBITDA in 2020 was EUR 2.5 (2.6) million. The decrease in EBITDA was due to significant product development investments and increased international sales resources. The result for the financial year was EUR 1.3 (1.8) million.
- The number of Unikie employees increased: at the end of the year, the Group employed a total of 329 top professionals in the software industry, of whom 245 (196) were their own employees.
- Unikie expanded through acquisition in Poland and technology acquisition in Germany and established a new subsidiary in Sweden. The presence of Unikie also expanded in the United States.
- CapMan Growth and Tesi (Industry Investment Ltd) made a total capital investment of EUR 12 million in Unikie.
- Mr Seppo Kuula, who served as a member of the company’s Board of Directors in 2020, started as Unikie’s CEO at the beginning of 2021.
- Unikie invested significantly in its research and development activities. The focus was on the development of technology related to autonomous vehicles.
- Future outlook and estimate of future development in 2021: The Unikie Group’s net sales are expected to grow clearly in 2021 as well. Profitability is expected to remain almost at the previous year’s level despite significant product development investments and new resources required for international growth.
Seppo Kuula, CEO:
“With the accelerating growth of digital terminals, the amount of digital data will also continue to grow exponentially. This development leads to the demand for data processing latency and aggregation technologies in terms of data usability. In the Old World, the device and company were islands, whose information was stored in their own warehouses. With modern technology, each island is connected to a common sea of information. That constant awareness enables us to control cars, equipment, and processes safely, with high quality and avoiding anomalies. Prediction and reporting were just intermediate steps in converting the data to act. Diversifying terminals that take advantage of the Internet of Everything (IoE) and sensor data (sensor Fusion), along with machine-assisted decision making (AI) and low-latency network connections (5G), enable process-time control without human-made content analysis.
Unikie is one of Finland’s fastest growing technology companies, which helps its customers to connect vehicles, people, and processes safely and in real time. We provide technical platforms and product development services for the application development of automatically controlled devices and process control, as well as for the development of network and terminal devices enabling secure data transfer. Our customers are leading companies in several industries. Our market is global, although by far most of our experts are in Finland. We believe in Finnish software development expertise and in our country’s technology-friendly operating environment.
There is a demand for our offering, as the ongoing global revolution of the diversification of information system terminals is forcing companies to develop their operations through, among other things, sensor data fusion, artificial intelligence, and advanced automation. Machine automation, mining business and port industry are pioneers in this development. In addition, through the process and equipment control, new technology is spreading like wildfire also to decision-making processes of business information systems.
I took over Unikie’s CEO position in the beginning of this year (2021), after a year 2020 as a member of the company’s Board of Directors. After having led businesses and people for 10 years in the business information systems building sector, it was interesting to return to the fields of technology and industry. It is fascinating to see how technological developments now unite not only people and processes, but also the equipment control. The processes of making and managing are becoming more harmonized, and industry actors have now also widely adopted service-oriented co-development (cocreation) and an iterative, lean-minded operating model. So, my job description remains more or less the same, only in the new framework. Our goals for the coming years are to build Unikie’s strategic story as a solid foundation for scalable processes, a common culture for good management, a permanent toehold in selected international markets and a pioneering position in our chosen technology segment.
Unikie has every chance of international success. Our growth culture enables challenging bravely the market, the ever-growing technological know-how and pioneering in selected applications. And the great discipline of Unikie enables us to develop our company in the long-term as the best partner for our customers in real-time control applications.
Finland’s future success story requires the efficiency created by advanced information management in a secure operating environment. The technology built in Finland is safe and reliable. Unikie is building a smart and data-secure society and world.
I want to thank each one of our employees, our customers, and our partners for our successful year 2020 during a corona pandemic. With its mobility restrictions, the year was challenging in many ways, but our community’s strong desire to develop has helped it find ways to work together. Restrictions in our operating environment have already been mitigated, and there is starting to be a feeling of springtime in the market.
Our growth continued to be strong in 2020. Our net sales increased by 23%, and despite the difficult operating environment, we gained significant new customers. We expect net sales to grow clearly in 2021 as well. Our refined strategy and organizational changes are being taking to action, and our future looks positive in every way.”
Additional information:
Seppo Kuula, CEO, Unikie Ltd, +358 40 370 0032, firstname.lastname@unikie.com
Unikie is a Finnish software solution house that develops technology for secure real-time processes. Our services focus on the intersection of three global macro trends – IoE, 5G and AI – where our technology solutions enable continuous awareness of the environment, and the decision-making and control based on it. Our customers are pioneers in the use of real-time data in the automotive, industrial and telecommunications businesses around the world.
Founded in 2015, Unikie is one of Finland’s fastest growing technology companies. In 2020, our turnover was EUR 33 million. Our goal for the next few years is to continue strong international growth, as demand for our artificial intelligence, deep technology and security solutions grows rapidly worldwide. At the end of last year, Capman Growth and Tesi came to finance our growth. We employ almost 400 software developers in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Poland and the United States. Our customers include Sandvik, Nokia, Valmet and Ponsse.
