Specim secures €3.5m investment

Specim has agreed to an investment of €3.5m by Bocap SME Achievers Fund II Ky, with the aim to double its current €10m revenues by 2020.

Specim manufactures hyperspectral imaging technology and related products and solutions. Its products are used in industrial, environmental and security applications. Specim’s solutions serve mining industries in drill core scanning and producing mineral maps, agriculture to screen the crops for disease and infestation, and they are key components in state-of-the-art waste sorting robotics. Specim’s products also revolutionise the authenticity inspection of artwork, detection of explosives, and forensic investigation.

The miniaturisation and fast development of key components and optics enable the development of increasingly powerful and smaller instruments for new applications in food safety, health, cosmetics and many other sectors.

During the past two years, Specim has invested about €6m in developing new generation cameras. It will complete the rollout of a revolutionary new product family by the end of 2017. The products are designed particularly for industrial and professional needs. They offer an easy access to hyperspectral imaging technology for industrial OEM-clients for their own applications. Specim will invest the new funding in further strengthening its position in the global markets.

“I am proud that as a high-tech company Specim will invest nearly as much in sales and marketing as in R&D. With this move it will take full commercial advantage of its superior knowledge, the entire R&D investment, and the new camera family,” explained Specim’s chairman Risto Kalske.

During Specim’s 22 years of existence, its clientele and customer solutions have gone through a drastic change along with rapidly developing technology. The originally large research equipment weighing tens of kilos and with challenging usability have transformed into compact mobile instruments weighing less than one kilo with revolutionary data processing capabilities. “I have every reason to believe that with miniaturisation, hyperspectral imaging will step into people’s everyday lives. Usability will undergo a revolution, and soon mobile equipment can easily be brought to the measurement sites for real-time use. Collecting samples, transporting them to the lab for analysis, and experiencing delays in getting the results will become history,” said Timo Hyvärinen, one of the founders of Specim.

Bocap’s partner, Vilma Torstila, is very excited about this opportunity: “Specim is an excellent company which combines superior technological knowledge with the ability to commercialise it to meet sophisticated and ever-demanding customer needs. We are happy to enhance Specim’s commercial success, and accelerate future growth via this investment.”