Nokia Smart Home Knowledge and the Vaasa energy cluster meet in a new company – There Corporation

The combination of the Nokia Smart Home team know-how and the Comsel team knowledge of energy grid and metering create an unique and strong basis to start developing new generation energy solutions

HELSINKI September 2009 – There corporation will focus on energy saving and efficiency. The energy saving solutions of the company are based on the ThereGate – which was formerly known as the Nokia Home Control Center or HCC. Main partners of There Corporation in the first stage are energy utilities, energy meter manufacturers, service providers in the energy and real estate segments.

Kaj Rönnlund, CEO of There Corporation, sees the combination of the mobile and platform technology know-how of the Nokia Smart Home team and the experience of energy grid and metering of the Comsel team as a unique and strong basis to start developing new generation energy solutions. “We are gate openers for our customers enhancing the value of their client offerings.”

There corporation is financed by the current management team and the Power Fund II by VNT Management, which manages two funds, Power Fund I and Power Fund II, with a focus on clean technology. Assets under management of these funds are €80 million. “There Corporation’s groundbreaking solution and extensive knowledge background in the smart grid market, which is estimated to be worth over €40 billion by 2020,makes it an interesting company to invest in.“ says Veijo Karppinen, chairman of VNT. The total funding of There corporation is €4,5 million.

There corporation provides the platform combining Smart Metering, Smart Home and Smart Grid solutions. This allows our partners to offer sustainable future proof solutions and services to their clients. The company focuses to start with on next generation smart metering to improve energy efficiency. The solution will also provide better service and control for end users. Many other ThereGate compatible appliances and applications will be provided by other companies. The first solution projects in this field have already been started and some of the end user solutions and services are expected to hit piloting phase in early 2010.

More information about There Corporation and its operations can be found at www.therecorporation.com.

There corporation was established in May 2009 by the Nokia Smart Home team with the know-how of mobile and platform technology. Combining this with the smart metering experience of the Comsel team from the Vaasa energy cluster creates a unique and strong basis for developing new generation energy solutions.

VNT Management, founded in 2002, is one of the first management companies in Europe to focus on renewable and distributed energy generation and energy-saving technology companies. The target is to show rate-of-return figures well above the median because of a focused investment strategy and experienced partners with a proven track record.

Comsel System started to focus on AMR solutions in the end of 1998. Focus has been on the major electricity grid companies in the Nordic region through its offices in Finland , Sweden and Norway . In 2006 the company was sold to Telenor Cinclus AS in Norway . The Comsel team has experience of selling and delivering approximately 1 million TCP/IP GPRS based AMR meter points in the Nordic countries. The Comsel System founder and key people teamed up with the There Corporation team during the second half of 2009 thanks to that both teams share the same vision and ambition to help people to create sustainable development for our world by smarter energy usage and home control.

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