How a startup leveraged ABB for growth and expansion
ABB and Elmery met at Slush side event organized by Business Finland in 2023. Elmery's CEO encourages startups to contact larger companies to find success and collaboration with them. Thriving large companies are always looking for new sources of inspiration.
Growth and internationalization are critical phases for startups. Especially, research-focused startups require partners that already have networks and know-how of industry-wide operations because these can be difficult to create and reach alone.
Elmery aimed to find a partner to succeed with, Mika Paalanne, CEO of Elmery reveals.
Elmery is pioneering the world's leading electrified metal refining solution for automated and cost-effective separation of critical metals, such as copper, platinum and iridium. Without this process innovation, some critical and precious metals would not be exploited and reused at all.
Even though the invention is revolutionary itself, the challenge is to find the right partner for industrializing and expanding the operations. Elmery decided to approach ABB at Business Finland's Slush side event in 2023, which aimed to provide companies and organizations with the opportunity to network with leading companies.
ABB and Elmery – The perfect couple for connecting application expertise and electrification
ABB develops new ways to respond the challenges of clean transition in business and research ecosystems. Their goal is to create new solutions for an energy system based on carbon-neutral electricity.
Why ABB?
Elmery is an expert in electronic metal refining process technology that customers are able to purchase for their use. It is important to collect data on how the solution is working in our customers' processes. This way we can adjust our systems to optimize the processes, also by remotely controlling it. For enabling this, we wanted ABB to be our partner as they are pioneer experts on offering these services, Mika Paalanne explains.
Collaboration creates concrete solutions and enables fast global scaling
Elmery and ABB recognized common visions, targets, and values: to create world-leading globally scalable solutions for the electrification of industry, the promotion of low-carbon solutions, and the challenges of the circular economy through Finnish collaboration.
Both companies aim to create concrete solutions so that they can be tested, developed and scaled for the industry use quickly.
Startup's operations expand with a larger partner
Elmery experiences that working with a large and known company has increased creditability and new possibilities for growth. ABB already has a wide customer base and networks in the Elmery's focus markets. Thus, one of the most important parts of the leading company collaboration has been to connect the expertise and core competencies, because it increases business understanding. The value of the leading company ecosystems is in finding the solutions for cross-cutting challenges.
What kind of advice would you give to other startups that are considering the expansion of collaboration?
Mika Paalanne encourages other startups to get to know and contact leading companies. You should prepare yourself by increasing understanding of leading companies' basic and business operations – doing thorough background work goes a long way.
Be ready to break the boundaries of prejudice and find out what the concrete goals and visions of the parties are – both in the short and long term. Be open-minded towards starting the negotiations and be direct when opening your company's strengths and in what subjects you need support with. That way, you can find out what the collaboration opportunities can be, Mika confirms. He emphasizes the importance of open dialogue about risks and shared guidelines with management, board, and stakeholders.
The road to growth alongside a leading company
Many may worry that collaboration can be slow with large companies. This fear turned out to be completely unnecessary, and on the contrary, the flexibility, agility, and speed of the collaboration was surprising. When the starting points are clear, collaboration progresses more smoothly, and both parties can commit to common goals.
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Contact us
Mika Paalanne (left in photo)
CEO, Elmery
mika.paalanne (at) elmery.fi
Simo Säynevirta
Head of ABB Green Electrification ecosystem
simo.saynevirta (at) fi.abb.com