Ghent-based scale-up Crodeon raises 1 million for European rollout of Internet of Things technology
Zwijnaarde (Ghent), 12 January 2023 - Crodeon Technologies, a Ghent-based scale-up specialising in Internet of Things applications, has raised EUR 1 million in a new funding round. Two years after the first capital round, Crodeon now has the resources to grow its star product Reporter® on the European market. Reporter® is a plug & play sensor module for remote monitoring and Internet of Things (IoT).
Reporter®: a plug & play alternative to expensive customisation
Sensors and data in general are becoming increasingly important. Large companies are already taking full advantage of the use of data, but SMEs are way less advanced in digitalisation. This is often because small projects are difficult to make profitable. The investment cost is mainly in finding and implementing compatible hardware. This requires highly skilled technical knowledge, the cost of which has exploded in recent years.
Applications such as automatic monitoring of a pump in well drainage or measuring a crack in concrete are often extremely expensive for small to medium-sized construction companies. The same applies, for example, to remote temperature recording in commercial kitchens and food companies. "Even for a groundwater level measurement on a construction site or a wind measurement on the roof of a building, still too often expensive custom-built systems are being built. We see this same phenomenon in a lot of sectors," said Jonathan Sercu, co-founder of Crodeon.
Through an extreme focus on ease of use, however, such small projects can be made profitable. With this in mind, Crodeon developed their star product Reporter®, an autonomous sensor module based on the latest mobile phone standards.
Via the webshop, the customer selects a number of sensors from renowned manufacturers from the assortment, directly compatible with Reporter®. After a few minutes, the customer has a finished end-to-end remote monitoring solution. "For us, plug & play means that a sensor is automatically detected without any additional work or programming," says co-founder Sam Vanheule. "In this way, we also enable less sizeable companies to bring their own sensor project online in no time. This allows our customer to save the high cost of high-tech customisation."
Growing with support from top Flemish entrepreneurs
Crodeon aims to grow into a proud Flemish electronics manufacturer. Investors Pieter Loose (CEO Ekopak) and Pieter Casneuf (ex-CEO Adam Software) are supporting the young company with funding and advice. Pieter Casneuf, for instance, has years of experience in digital marketing for scale-ups and Pieter Loose has a broad network within the water sector.
"With this new investment, we will mainly focus on sales and marketing, but also scaling our operations," says CEO Jonathan Sercu. "The fact that hardware startups always have significant upfront investment costs is something I rather see as an advantage. Such a threshold creates significantly less competition, unlike, say, in the software world."
Crodeon is always looking for complementary partnerships with sensor manufacturers on the one hand and integrators or IT companies with Reporter® or experience in cloud applications on the other. "The power and versatility of our hardware combined with our cloud platform and the Crodeon API enable numerous projects in the cloud. Reporter® should become a substantive, the reference when someone thinks about data, IoT and remote monitoring."
About Crodeon
Crodeon was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Sercu and Sam Vanheule. The idea originated when Sam wanted to come up with a simple solution to help his father on the farm. He devised a system to remotely see if water was still available, if the sprinkler system was still working and to monitor a ventilation system.
Today, Crodeon has its offices in Technology Park in Zwijnaarde and the agricultural sector still only represents a quarter of its turnover. "Our mission is to help companies of all sizes get started with data," says Jonathan. Its customer base includes companies such as VITO, TotalEnergies, NTT and Antwerp Terminal Services but Crodeon is also strong in the SME segment with more than 250 customers in eight countries.
