Oppiva Invest, which operates under the guidance of the Finnish National Agency for Education, has granted a capital loan of EUR 2 million to Secapp´s critical communication and alert system to promote its international growth. With the help of funding, Secapp will recruit new employees to accelerate the promotion of the safety and security of educational institutions in Finland and outside of Finland. The theme has risen to a critical role in the changed security situation.
“Secapp´s development, successful business model, and strong references convinced us of the company´s good potential for international growth, which we want to boost,” says Pekka Salmi, Senior Advisor at Oppiva Invest. According to Salmi, Secapp solutions offer substantial benefits to the operations of educational institutions, e.g. emergency management, management of teaching resources, and agile connection with critical government services.
In addition to financing, Oppiva Invest brings with its networks for internationalization. According to Salmi, Oppiva Invest promotes a wide range of cooperation between companies and potential customers. “Although we are involved with a capital loan and not with direct ownership, our goal is to be an active partner in the growth and challenges of companies,” says Salmi. He also considers it important that with domestic funding we can strengthen the development of core operations in Finland before rounds of international financing.
Salmi also mentions that in order to obtain funding, companies have to go through a relatively tough selection process. “We believe this is a good reference for increasing the credibility of our companies in the market,” he says. The companies that receive funding must have, among other things, evidence of competitiveness with their solutions on the market, innovation, capacity, and enthusiasm to cooperate in a vocational learning network.
“Improving the safety of educational institutions is an important theme for us and we want to continue to invest in it. It is important to us that students and employees can always feel secure and confident when going to school,” explains Kari Aho, CEO of Secapp.
Secapp’s system is already trusted by 62 Finnish educational institutions in critical communication and alerting. In addition, Secapp has been awarded e.g. TOP 3 among the activities that have promoted Finland’s national security in terms of promoting the security of educational institutions.
“With funding from Oppiva Invest, we will recruit new employees to help us bring the expertise we have accumulated over the years to international markets faster. In this way, we are able to help develop a safety culture outside the borders of Finland, ”Aho concludes.
More information:
Kari Aho
CEO, Secapp
+358 50 406 3028
kari.aho@secapp.fi
Pekka Salmi
Senior Advisor, Oppiva Invest
+358 50 560 6018
pekka@oppivainvest.fi
Oppiva Invest Oy
Secapp Oy