Oden Technologies, the data and AI software company serving the manufacturing industry, has announced the successful completion of a $28.5 million Series B funding round. Nordstjernan Growth led the investment, which will be primarily used to accelerate the development of AI products for the manufacturing industry. The funding round saw participation from new investors such as Flat Capital, the investment firm founded by Klarna’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Oden’s customer INX International Ink Co., and Recurring Capital Partners. Almost all existing investors, including Atomico and EQT Ventures, also participated in the round. As part of the funding round, Ebba Lilliehöök from Nordstjernan Growth and Anders Berggren, an independent manufacturing executive, will join Oden’s board.
Oden Technologies has worked with manufacturing companies like Sonoco, Southwire, and Viakable to enhance productivity and reduce waste at scale by leveraging their complex and valuable data. The company has witnessed a double increase in recurring revenue year over year for the past two years.
The new funding will be used to accelerate the development of AI products that address critical manufacturing pain points that have led to an industry-wide productivity plateau. Oden Technologies aims to enhance data accuracy, domain knowledge capture and distribution, and expand recommendation capabilities using its proven, turnkey data engine.
The funding round follows the resounding success of Process AI, Oden’s machine-operator centric product. By providing operators with real-time prescriptive process recommendations and predicted outcomes, Process AI empowers them to optimize their runs for cost savings, increased output, or other corporate objectives. These capabilities enable new operators to perform at the level of experienced ones, thereby addressing the challenge of labor productivity caused by an average 50% three-month retention rate for operators and a time to productivity of more than two years on the line. Over 80% of runs utilizing the recommendations within enabled lines, leading to an increase in line speeds by more than 40% at some customers.
“The labor and productivity challenges facing manufacturers are existential,” says Willem Sundblad, CEO and co-founder of Oden Technologies. “Operators are the most critical part of the process, but are the most underserved. With our AI applications, we’re able to give the front-line the tools to be the heroes of this industrial revolution.”
Despite the volatile market conditions, Oden has experienced consistent growth. This growth has enabled the company to carefully choose partners that can provide long-term support to the business.
“Oden is an exciting and innovative company with a lot of potential in a large market. We are impressed by their work so far and we look forward to supporting Oden long-term” — Torbjörn Folkesson, Head of Nordstjernan Growth.
Oden’s solution is valued by INX International Ink Co. which is why they joined the funding round, given their shared vision for the future of manufacturing.
“We learned Oden provides significant value through real time manufacturing data,” said Jim Kochanny, INX chief operating officer. “We are already seeing value and increased performance on the front-line from features related to machine learning and AI.”
