Controlant Receives Special Recognition at Nordic Scaleup Awards

The Nordic Scaleup Summit, held yesterday in Stockholm, showcases Nordic success stories. After a day spent sharing recipes for successfully scaling a business globally, the event then celebrated high achievers during the Scaleup Awards in the evening. Controlant is honored to be counted among those high achievers and to have received a Special Recognition Award at last night’s event.

“We have a long history in the Nordic region of building strong, large companies such as Ericsson and Nokia. But now with digitalization, we are making history again when new companies scale up and emerge,” said Ida Hansson Brusewitz, editor of Di Digital in her introductory speech to the summit.

“Companies in the upscaling phase are extremely important for the Nordic economies, not least as job creators. But they don’t get the attention they deserve, which is one of the reasons we hold the Nordic Scale Up Summit,” said Svein Berg, Director General of Nordic Innovation.

The Nordic Scale Up Awards were presented at a dinner event in the evening, with two companies sharing the top award - Swedish energy storage solutions company, Polarium; and Finnish cloud service infrastructure provider, Aiven – and Controlant receiving the Special Recognition award.

The award is as much a tribute to Controlant’s employees as it is to the company’s flagship innovation; a data logger that leverages IoT real-time technology to bring unprecedented visibility, efficiency, and responsiveness to global temperature-controlled supply chains.

“It is a huge honor for Controlant to receive the award, especially this year when the company celebrates its 15-year anniversary,” says Gisli Herjolfsson, CEO of Controlant.

“Scaling up a company is an adventure, to say the least, and we have worked very hard to get this far. Timing has been an important part of our success in scaling up. In the beginning, we applied our technology in many different areas, before we chose to focus entirely on solutions for real-time monitoring of temperature-controlled supply chains, with the aim of improving quality and safety and reducing supply chain waste by 90 percent. We have unwavering commitment to our groundbreaking solution and our success in scaling up comes from methodically and steadfastly working to develop it. In this way, we have achieved global coverage in a growing market, while at the same time safeguarding sustainability and creating real benefits, not least during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Asked what advice he’d give other companies looking to scale up, Gisli says: “Stay committed to your product, stay focused on your mission, surround yourself with smart people, and be proactive, flexible, and optimistic about growth. It’s easier to scale-up quickly if you are agile than to wait until demand comes knocking.”