Björn Lindquist is new in the Bay Area and has brought his company, Combain, with him to Silicon Valley. This is not the first time Björn has lived in California, he started as an electrical engineering student in Lund, taking an exchange year at UC Santa Barbara. Then many years later he returned to the U.S. to head up the GSM mobile phone development unit for Sony Ericsson in North Carolina for three years. But this time Björn is returning as CEO for his own company, hoping to change the geolocation business in the U.S.
Combain is an R&D focused company and provider of an advanced positioning system for wireless devices. Based in Lund, Sweden, the research at Sony Ericsson was what started the company. In the beginning Combain acted as a research consultant for a radio positioning project. Combain has since then also developed a close connection to Lund University with students and researchers working for the company while also working for the University. This is a great way for a company to narrow the gap between the academics and business.
In Combain’s infancy, Björn was working at Sony Ericsson and responsible for the positioning research project. However, in 2009, Björn recognized the opportunity for Combain and left Sony Ericsson to transform and restart Combain as a product company with a unique positioning product. Using his experience and expertise in the industry, Björn has been a big part of developing the technology as well as the business.
The first two years of running Combain were a struggle with few customers, but since 2011 they have had positive results and have increased their revenue by 50% per year. Their R&D aim is to complete the technology for their indoor 3D positioning system this year, the first global positioning system working in 3 dimensions that has ever been built.
“Apple and Google have their own geolocation systems but with their size, lack of customer support and different business focus they are not really competitors. And I mean, our customers prefer us since we give them good support, we are not Google, and our new technology is far more advanced and better.”
Combain already supports large global operators to locate M2M devices that are built into different things, for example refrigerators in Africa and smart meters in South America. Combain’s business model was always with an international approach. Their clients today are based mainly in Europe and Asia but they have noticed lot of potential in the U.S. for their product while visiting America last 3 years. Combain decided to capitalize on this opportunity and have sent Björn to the Bay Area as their representative. They have since some time been partners with Mozilla and Gemalto and their aim is now to partner with IoT and module manufacturers (like Gemalto) to enable their customers to do accurate positioning of their devices easily. Combain is also looking to partner with a few Android App developers that would benefit from a much more accurate global indoor location including floor level.
“The first goal is to continue building our company and expand here. We have a one year plan to increase our revenue in the U.S. by $1,000,000” Having built one of the world´s largest position databases together with the potential of being the world´s first global indoor 3D positioning system, Combain have great faith in reaching this goal and future growth.
Combain became SACC-SF/SVs newest partner in September. SACC-SF/SVs and Combain’s relationship started with SACC-SF/SV promoting the company by awarding them the spot as our Startup at the European Pitch Night. Even though Björn has not lived in America for a while he gave a world class silicon valley style pitch and we were honored to be represented by Combain.
With Combain’s competent and talented team in Lund managed by Björns Co-owner Rikard, their advanced and successful technology and their professionalism, paired with Björns drive we believe the sky is the limit for this company, especially here in the Bay Area. We look forward to a successful future for our newest partners!
If you are interested in Combain and their tracking and positioning system you can find more information here: https://combain.com/
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