NEW YORK-Nokia Corp. arguably is the only Finland-based company that is synonymous in the United States with telecommunications. But the Invest in Finland Bureau, Helsinki, is working to change that state of business affairs by serving as corporate matchmaker, Nils-Christian Berg, chief executive, said.
Late last month, Amtel Corp., a San Jose, Calif., developer and manufacturer of integrated circuits that has 4,400 employees worldwide, announced it had acquired Fincitec Components Oy, Helsinki.
The Amtel acquisition of Fincitec is the most recent example of efforts under way to move small but promising high-tech Finnish companies into wider market arenas through investments by bigger players, said Philip Murphy, senior associate of Burson-Marsteller, New York, and chief of the Invest in Finland Bureau News Bureau.
Fincitec, which has 14 employees, has developed proprietary and patented circuit designs in digital signal processing and analog-to-analog and digital-to-analog converters, Amtel said. Its launch was financed by Start Fund of Kera Oy, one of the leading venture capital firms in Finland.
“The addition of these key core technologies to our portfolio will enlarge our capabilities in system-level integration by allowing us to expand our microcontroller family with analog and DSP products,” said Krish Panu, vice president and general manager of Amtel.
Amtel’s purchase of Fincitec is one of the few examples so far of an acquisition by a large American company of a small, high-tech Finnish company involved in wireless telecommunications-related endeavors. But it certainly won’t be the last, according to the goals of the Invest in Finland Bureau.
One of the earliest such investments occurred in 1993 when Tellabs Inc., Bollingbrook, Ill., purchased Martis Oy in Espoo, a suburb of Helsinki. Martis’ primary product was a software-based combination digital cross-connect system and networking multiplexer designed for use in regional and national data and cellular networks.
By the end of this year, Martis, now called Tellabs Oy, is expected to have more than 700 employees, nearly six times its staffing level four years ago. Besides research and customer service, the new positions are in manufacturing. To meet increasing production demands, Tellabs is near completion on construction of a new 151,000-square-foot manufacturing plant near Martis’ existing facility in Espoo.
Espoo also is the site of Technology Development Centre, part of the Finnish Network Program in Telecommunications for Small and Medium-Size Businesses. The center was started three years ago as a business incubator, Berg said.
A mission statement for the center is “to launch high-quality telecommunication services and products on the international market by creating a national network … of industrial companies, research centers and universities … linking both small and large companies.
“The synergies that the network builds upon are research and development cooperation, supportive systems such as a `know-how’ data bank and software library, supportive services including managerial and legal services, and cooperation in international marketing.”
