Sensemakers sees an ocean of green opportunities for entrepreneurs on Bornholm
Jakob Brömauer and Søren Femmer Jensen from Sensemakers seeing Bornholm as the ideal place for green tech startups. Photo: Sune Rasborg
Bornholm should be branded as the perfect place for people with ideas for green technology start-ups, according to the director behind Sensemakers, who has himself been pleased to start his business adventure on Bornholm.
Bornholm maritime drones, which function as unmanned sensor boats operated with artificial intelligence, could eventually make a major global difference to the marine environment. It is the Bornholm-based company Sensemakers that aims to monitor the marine environment and water quality using its advanced sensor boats, which provide completely new opportunities for keeping an eye on ocean health. And the company is already experiencing great international interest.
It all started with a good idea just over three years ago, explains the director and co-founder of Sensemakers, Søren Femmer Jensen, who started the company with Jakob Brömauer, who had just moved to Bornholm from Germany at the time.
– Jakob had been a development engineer in Germany for five years and had some ideas about using sensor technology. I wanted to use that in the service of the marine environment. We are all familiar with the state of the Baltic Sea. That is why our shared vision became to invent a smarter way to monitor the marine environment, he says, adding:
– It began with us finding a really good underwater sensor. But it cost a quarter of a million kroner, so we came up with the idea of making it mobile instead of being fixed to a buoy, explains Søren Femmer Jensen.
We are still in a development phase where we are improving the platform, but at a very early stage we began – based in Tejn Harbour – testing the technology in reality.
Proud of Bornholm
That is how the duo came up with the idea to create mobile sensors that can measure water quality and monitor the marine environment using unmanned robotic boats. They call it a SenseBoat.
– It is also called a maritime drone, but is a boat that is unmanned, he says, explaining that the boat has both an underwater camera, a water sensor and a camera mounted on the mast.
– It is approximately a couple of metres in length and relatively narrow, and then it is no heavier than that one person can carry it. We are also making a larger version, which requires two people to carry. But compared to a normal research vessel, it is still much smaller, he explains.
– We are still in a development phase where we are improving the platform, but at a very early stage we began – based in Tejn Harbour – testing the technology in reality, says the director, who is pleased that the company started on Bornholm.
– Everywhere we tell that we come from Bornholm. It has provided good value for us to connect with Bornholm's green profile with Bright Green Island and Baltic Energy Island, because it has helped us to raise funds, says Søren Femmer Jensen, who has been supported by both guidance and finance on the island.
– Business Center Bornholm has helped us with sparring from the beginning, just as Bornholms Erhvervsfond and local Sparbo Invest have invested in us. So I would say that we have benefited from coming from Bornholm as a green tech startup, even though there are not yet many of our kind on the island.
Valuable sparring
At the same time, the company has also received valuable sparring on the other side of the water, where Sensemakers made a great impression with a place in the final of the Danish Tech Challenge alongside a field of Denmark's best tech startup companies.
The company proved its worth by creating the environmental vessel »Sally«, which scans the marine environment and biodiversity. The competition led to an extended mentoring programme at DTU Science Park, where they received help to develop both their product and business. And the firm still collaborates with researchers at DTU.
– In the field of technology, we not only collaborate with the best in Denmark, but also with some of the leading players in Europe around DTU. This means that we occasionally have to go to meetings in Lyngby. But you can work on board the morning ferry, and even though it takes about three hours to get over there, it's a small price to pay compared to all the advantages we have from running a startup on Bornholm,« he explains.
From wastewater to coral reef
Sensemakers’ first major customer is the City of Copenhagen, which uses the Bornholm-based company’s robotic boats to monitor bathing water quality in Copenhagen’s canals and wastewater discharges. However, the company's technology is also of great benefit far beyond Denmark's borders, as their SenseBoats are additionally used to monitor coral reefs in Indonesia as part of an innovation project facilitated by the Danish embassy.
– It showed us a glimpse of the global potential of our sensor boats, says Søren Femmer Jensen.
– For the Indonesians are very interested in getting help to monitor the marine environment and water quality. We cannot yet monitor deep-water corals, as our underwater cameras currently only reach down to a depth of eight metres. But with a sensor boat, on the other hand, you can measure the health of coral reefs much more precisely than divers can, because week after week you can measure the exact same corals, he says, adding that in the long term the technology creates a sea of opportunities.
– It will provide the opportunity to monitor the marine environment much more effectively than previously, when divers were sent out, but here we can do it more frequently and more precisely, so that measurements can be obtained on a weekly basis instead of every six months, says Søren Femmer Jensen.
Great place to be a start-up
He sees a business potential in monitoring the marine environment around offshore wind farms, and the company has already gained good contacts through the offshore networks they have also been put in touch with via their contacts on Bornholm.
– Our goal is to sell a double-digit number of sensor boats within the next year. Some large orders will bring in many millions of kroner, so it will require more employees and partnership agreements with established tech companies. But we are ready for that, so I believe we have a bright future.
The company has already collaborated with some local businesses regarding their stainless steel components. They also have partners on the other side of the water, says the director, who recommends others with good green business ideas to bring them to life on the rocky island. Because on Bornholm, more people can better afford to embark on a business adventure, as it is possible to live on a lower salary, he points out.
– Actually, one ought to brand Bornholm as the perfect place for people with ideas for green technology startups. For with the island's good network in the green field and the low cost of living on the island, it is a great place to go with a green business idea, says Søren Femmer Jensen, who today sees a sensible future for his company, which right now has three employees – his co-founder and a new co-owning employee.
If the company's growth continues, he hopes that in five years he will be the director of a major multi-million-pound company with quite a few employees on the island.
BY JOAN ØHRSTRØM