Swedish teltech startup Telness Tech has just secured €8.5 million in Series A funding. We take an exclusive look at this news with insights from the founder, Martina Klingvall.
The European telecoms market is taking to the clouds, and Telness Tech is a Swedish startup navigating the journey. Founded in 2021, the company spun out of Swedish telecoms provider Telness (launched in 2016) and is shaking up the telecommunications industry. Today, Telness Tech have announced an €8.5 million capital boost led by Stockholm-based VC, Industrifonden. Telness Tech’s existing investor, JCE Group, also participated in the round.
Telecommunications is one of those industries that is fundamental to society, however, it’s one that has also been slow to innovate and digitise. This is what Telness Tech aims to ignite – offering a cloud-based infrastructure that businesses can use to increase customer happiness and lower operational expenditure.
Speaking on the vision behind Telness Tech, Founder Martina Klingvall said:
“The vision is to raise the standards we’ve come to expect from the telecoms industry.
We believe that the industry can deliver great customer experience in a digital environment, just like the consumer-facing services we see in other sectors. That is why we launched our digital operator, Telness, in Sweden before offering our tech platform to anyone else.
With Telness we’ve proven that you can create a totally digital experience and be loved by customers at the same time. Now the same platform on which we built Telness is available to all telecoms operators looking to transform their product offering and customer service through Telness Tech. Our tech now stands to be an injection of innovation for the entire industry, whilst also reducing costs and boosting customer happiness and experience.”
The platform, already used by Telness to deliver telecoms services to over 15k business customers in Sweden, comprises a cloud-based digital end-to-end solution that liberates traditional telcos from legacy infrastructure, cost and complexity. With its cloud-based PBX, it also enables telcos to keep up with innovation and the pace of challenger brands at a low cost of ownership – so the industry can keep developing and pushing into new frontiers. And consumers aren’t hit with rising rollercoaster prices.
Commenting on the need to innovate in the telecoms sector, Martina shared her thoughts:
“The telecom industry offers commodity services and still exists with few large players in each market. Since there is a large barrier to enter a market, there is also a lack of innovation coupled with a clear need for shareholders to be “fat and happy”.
Digital transformation has changed expectations from customers, based on experiences and standards from other industries, and they’re now demanding more modern services from their telcos. Every industry needs disruptors to help move the needle and drive innovation. Teltech is what fintech was to finance. It’s the disruptive force that is capable of sparking systemic change in the industry. Telness Tech’s platform can enable operators to make a difference and do so quickly, without failing with costly, large “transformation” projects. What most costly and slow transformation projects would achieve in three years, we can do in a matter of months because our platform is cloud-based and can easily integrate into existing systems.”
In the face of a growing cost-of-living crisis, teltech is one way that innovation can help consumers lower costs and manage their money. We chatted to Martina about this:
“With prices rising, this will prompt customers to switch providers. They won’t just be looking purely at prices but also at value for money. Consumers want a great service at a low cost and it’s those MVNOs and challenger brands that are built on the cloud and partnered up with teltechs like Telness Tech that have the upper hand here when it comes to attracting new customers. In the longer term those telcos that are run from a platform such as ours can reduce prices further and increase efficiency – so it’s a win for them and for the customers.”
So, what’s next for the startup? With this fresh new funding, the company certainly has scope to expand and grow into new markets, bringing its money-saving, innovative tech to the European masses. According to Martina, the company wants to focus initially on the UK and the Netherlands before driving change in the telecoms industry on a global scale.
She added: “We have a great product that can enable others to make a difference in their market and for its customers. Our goal is to become the next generation ‘Swedish Ericsson’ and provide the telecom industry with innovative and digital core technology worldwide.”
