In just a few years, Odense has become the robot capital of the world. Now the city may be ready for the next big thing

At SDU Startup Station – the University of Southern Denmark’s official startup and entrepreneurial environment, the success story of robotics has given alle types of entrepreneurs a boost.

Erik Lillelund
September 11, 2024

Erik Lillelund

@Erik

Robotics has put the Odense ecosystem on the world map. Now, the development has laid the groundwork for new verticals to sprout in the ecosystem.

This post is also available in: Danish

The success story of the Funen robotics community, which over two decades has become a technological epicenter for startups and scaleups, is today well known.

Today, Odense is considered a global robotics capital of sorts, housing the majority of Denmark’s approximately 600 robotics, automation and drone companies and 18.500 employees. In 2022, the total amount of capital invested in robotics companies in Odense reached €1 billion.

And perhaps this success has paved the way for Odense to host new startup adventures in the future?

At SDU Startup Station – the University of Southern Denmark’s official startup and entrepreneurial environment, where 120 active startups from five different faculties are currently based, they certainly feel that the success story has given the entrepreneurs a boost.

“Odense as an epicenter for robots has positively pushed so much in the entire ecosystem. A kind of success formula has been built for strong collaboration between the players, private investors, companies and public institutions,” says Søren Land, Office Manager at SDU Startup Station.

2404 - SDU Startup Night 2024 - 94 - TechSavvy — Søren Land Office Manager at the entrepreneurial environment SDU Startup Station

Several of the latest star seeds that have been through the startup hub show that new positions of strength may be on their way to Funen.

These include the femtech company Mewalii, which is having great success with sanitary towels made from hemp, HumAId, which uses artificial intelligence to translate speech into sign language for the deaf, and Oceanwide Seaweed, which is making seaweed production a key part of the green transition.

“The success stories have given us political attention, a municipality that visibly supports entrepreneurship and a lot of attention from national and international investors. And that rubs off on the entire ecosystem – not just the robot companies,” says Søren Land.

The history of robotics in Odense goes back to the old Lindø shipyard, which for almost a century built ships for the Maersk Group’s shipping business. Three decades ago, the yard began developing and investing in welding robots that could streamline the production of the huge ships.

In 1997, Maersk donated DKK 100 million to the University of Southern Denmark as part of robot development, and that was the start of the Maersk McKinney Moller Institute, which sowed the seeds of Danish research in robotics, attracted experts in the field to Funen and, in collaboration with the business community, created the know-how that still thrives in the area.

In 2015, one of the standard-bearers, Universal Robotics (UR), was sold for a staggering DKK 1.9 billion and three years later it was Mobile Industrial Robots’ (MIR) turn for DKK 2.3 billion.

The return of the entrepreneurs

As a serial Odense entrepreneur, Thomas Eriksson has experienced the development first-hand. He has created several companies throughout his career and is currently CEO and founder of SASHA – Safe Share, a startup that uses AI to ensure better digital security for image material.

The great robot success has helped breathe life into the entrepreneurial environment in Odense, he says.

“In Odense, startup and entrepreneurial events were initially something the municipality was often responsible for. But today it’s largely driven by all the successful entrepreneurs who have been through an exit and now want to give back to the ecosystem they come from. The robot cluster has a big part in that development.”

Sasha_004_full - TechSavvy — Thomas Eriksson serial entrepreneur and CEO and founder of AI startup SASHA Safe Share

Søren Land from SDU Startup Station shares this experience. The many success stories have laid a foundation for new successes. But which specific verticals will flourish is hard to predict, but MedTech could very well be one of them, he says.

“It has laid a foundation in the form of investors, entrepreneurs, companies and organizations. This is what makes Odense and the ecosystem constantly evolve.”