Fouled industrial pipelines are a total nightmare. As the pressure rises, energy consumption skyrockets, and the whole production needs to be stopped in order to clean up the clogged pipe as fast as possible. Every industry and country in the world suffers — for heat exchangers alone, fouling costs amount to $123 billion in the world’s ten largest economies. For centuries, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the world has been dragging this problem. After countless technological advances and the need to use our resources more efficiently, it’s hard to believe that the world is throwing away entire fouled pipelines and still seeks to find the best ways to get rid of fouling. Now, the time has finally come to fix the problem. Enter Altum.
For several years, Altum COO Bo Malmberg and CEO Matias Tainela ran a company that imported different sonic and ultrasonic cleantech solutions to help their clients clean fouling in industrial equipment. During this period, several of their customers asked, “Do you have a product that can clean our fouled equipment with ultrasound without the need to stop production?” Bo and Matias looked all over the world to import a solution that could do this — but found nothing. All the ultrasound technologies out there were just too weak, and there was no way to control the power to clean up the equipment entirely.
Customers didn’t accept no for an answer. The next question was, “Could you create a solution for us? We are ready to pay for it”. Since Bo and Matias didn’t know how to create a solution, they decided to research who could be the best person to develop such a system.
All fingers pointed to professor of physics Edward Haeggström from the University of Helsinki. “When talking to Edward about our idea, we turned out to be a perfect fit,” tells Matias. Edward was pleased that finally someone had an understanding of the market need, and he happened to have a world-class team that can develop a high-power ultrasonic solution such as the one needed. This is the reason Edward brought CTO Timo Rauhala and Chief Science Officer Petro Moilanen (PhD) to the team. Altum Technologies was born in May 2016 with five founders.
Altum uses ultrasound to penetrate the walls of liquid-carrying industrial equipment to remove dirt that accumulates inside. This method doesn’t cause damage to the machinery and, even more importantly, involves no chemicals and doesn’t require the production to stop for the cleaning to take place. The solution can be remotely monitored and controlled. It also employs cutting-edge scientific research in the fields of FEM/BEM modelling and artificial intelligence (AI). Altum now uses this research for the first time in practical applications, such as industrial cleaning. The team has already been working with leading industrial companies in Europe but is now ready to expand to the U.S.
It has been quite a year for Altum after winning the Slush 100 Pitching Competition last November in Helsinki. Just last week the company announced its latest funding round led by Maki.vc and we are absolutely excited to work with their revolutionary technology to fix the last remaining piece of the industrial revolution.
Ready to make history with Altum? Let’s.
