Onomondo is enabling the fourth industrial revolution with IoT connectivity

We’re the invisible connection link between physical devices and cloud computing

“Onomondo is a global mobile network tailored to Internet of Things. Basically, we are building the technology stack which merges networks together all over the world. We are enabling the connectivity – the connection – from a physical device to the internet. That means that anywhere in the world regardless of the network you're connected to with a car or a container or any other solution, we can make sure that everything happens securely and effectively and that there are no frictions involved in setting up the communication. Onomondo is thereby removing the friction for enabling IoT.”

“Our mission is to enable the fourth industrial revolution by removing connectivity from the equation. We want to make IoT connectivity issues a thing of the past.”

Instead of selling software we became the operator

“Our founding story started when my co-founder, Henrik Aagaard, called me up one day and said that he had found a niche opportunity within how networks communicate and how operators work around that. In our minds, there were only half-baked solutions in the market, so we decided to basically fix roaming. This set us out on a long trajectory of in-depth telecom, tech, core networks, infrastructure and sim cards - and how all those components work together. This was back in 2011, and over time it got us to a knowledge level where we actually had the capability to function as a full operator on par with operators like Telenor and Vodafone.”

“Eventually, we saw a growing opportunity within the IoT space, so we repurposed our angle towards the technology and became the operator instead of selling the software to other operators to fix their problems. It was a hard and time consuming journey, but it also forced us into diving into each of these deep technical aspects of our industry, which means that we now have the capacity and capability to both teach and build everything from A to Z.”

Digital transformation needs to happen at a wider scale

“What really drives us is that we are enabling a lot of really groundbreaking solutions. If you think about the large wheels that are turning society like transportation, mobility, food production, energy and water, digitizing the large-scale enabling infrastructure supporting those industries is super appealing to us. I think we're breaking some ground in enabling traditional physical products and physical services to be digitized and reach a more efficient level. In essence this obviously drives both economic value, but also societal value - and not least value for our planet. With our solution, we are trying to make other industries succeed in getting more out of the resources that they use with digitisation.”

“Take for example transportation of food. There are billions and billions of dollars worth of wasted food every year due to poor transportation monitoring. When monitoring is automated and connected, you are able to react before goods are damaged. You are able to pinpoint excatly where during transportation things go wrong and you’re even able to optimise the climate inside the container transporting tomatoes or avocados to make them ripe exactly when they arrive at their destination. So, connecting the containers without introducing a lot of friction in the process is a concrete value that we can bring and that we help enable. I think there's great untapped potential in linking these incredibly large processes and industries up with a digital footprint. In the end, we need to go more digital if we are to meet any sustainable development goals or scale new sustainable business models.”

The Danish tech startup scene has matured greatly in the last few years

“I think we have one of the best ecosystems in the world for starting a business in Denmark - both from a public standpoint and from a private standpoint. The bureaucratic process, setting up all the practicalities and the lenient way of easing into the tax system and everything around starting a business is super easy in Denmark. This means you really have time to focus on the important stuff early on.”

“Today, the startup scene in Denmark is quite mature. I could imagine starting a business 15-20 years ago might have been a different struggle both in terms of public support and feedback, the talent that was available and everything in between. Today those days are definitely different and things are much much better. I think the opportunity to start something here is amazing.”

“One thing that is both a positive and a negative thing is the small and tight ecosystem we have. From our perspective, we can reach out to almost anybody across the ecosystem for experiences, feedback or shared input. I think there's very much a sense of a joint mission of building an ecosystem out of Denmark, and I think that's great. The flip side of it is obviously that it is not massive yet, which means we don't have all the opportunities in the world because there are not a lot of people here. The size is limited but the quality of the people within the environment is high.”