The drone company Nordic Unmanned is noticed internationally. – Now we are growing very, very fast, says the boss.
SANDNES (Nettavisen Økonomi 🙂 When the British business newspaper Financial Times after New Year was to gather the threads and name them 1,000 fastest growing companies in Europe, it was a Norwegian company that stood out: Nordic Unmanned from Sandnes.
The drone company was at the top of the list of all Norwegian companies, and outperformed all competitors that deliver in aerospace, as well as military activity. Top manager and founder Knut Roar Wiig (41) is very happy with 245th place. For comparison is hot Kolonial.no/Oda in 966th place.
– When I saw the overview of the Financial Times, I was surprised. Especially that we were highest on the list among the Norwegian companies. On Dagens Næringsliv’s list, we were not even qualified, because they use other criteria – including how much money you earn, says Wiig and continues:
– That may be the difference between the European and the Norwegian league. For us, creating growth and growth opportunities is about more than just the bottom line, says Wiig.
Watch video interview with Knut Roar Wiig in the window below:
From Spanish wines to complicated drones
Wiig meets Nettavisen Økonomi in his hometown Sandnes, where the drone company is growing out of its own offices and moving into new, larger premises in the same building. In October last year, Nordic Unmanned had 27 employees. Now they are 60. By 2021, Wiig is likely to be the boss of up to 100 employees. The 41-year-old does not take his foot off the gas.
– Now we are growing very, very fast. I am amazed at how fast it is possible to grow when you first work to achieve growth. I believe that the connection between setting high goals and the growth such goals create is the key. We have something to strive for and dare to think that this is how it will be, says Wiig.
Nordic Unmanned
2020 was a breakthrough year for the drone company Nordic Unmanned:
- Major contracts with the Armed Forces and BaneNor, the first flight with hydrogen as fuel and listing on Euronext Growth were among the highlights.
- Revenues grew 112 percent to NOK 66.1 million.
- Operating profit before interest, tax and other depreciation was positive for the first time: 5.6 million plus.
- The company earned close to 70,000 kroner per hour on the air. The number of flight hours increased by 221 percent from 2019 to 2020 to 781 hours.
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It is just over six years since he and four friends who knew each other from the Home Guard started Nordic Unmanned. Several of his friends were laid off from the oil industry during the fall in oil prices, and the group of friends talked about how drone technology would become more and more important for the industry in the future.
Remote-controlled underwater robots – so-called ROVs – are currently used for inspection, maintenance and installation of new models on the Norwegian shelf. But what about remote-controlled work tasks at height?
– Now in retrospect we see that drones are even more complex and have more uses than an ROV. None of us had a drone background, and we spent a lot of time acquiring knowledge and understanding of both software and hardware, says Wiig.
He himself had a background as an entrepreneur, and among other things engaged in the import and sale of Spanish wines. He now leads the first listed drone operator in Europe. All the entrepreneurs still have shares in the company, but three of them returned to the oil and gas industry when the oil price rose again after the crisis in 2014-2016.
Today, Nordic Unmanned uses advanced drones to monitor emissions from ship traffic, equipment for military forces, as well as digitization, logistics and robotics. There were a total of 781 flights in 2020, an increase of 221 percent from 2019.
– A typical assignment for us is that we carry out a relatively complicated drone operation to retrieve and create complex datasets that customers want. The more demanding the data, the more valuable and interesting for us. We do not operate simple flights and take pictures of houses and such, says Wiig.
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Stops environmental crime: – Pioneering
When Nettavisen appears in the office premises near the town hall in Sandnes, the Nordic Unmanned monitors show an ongoing operation outside Lithuania. The crew of the cargo ship does not seem to get it, but a drone from Norwegian Nordic Unmanned has been commissioned by the authorities to monitor the sulfur content of their fuel.
No ship should sail with sulfur-heavy diesel on the tank. If Nordic Unmanned can document that the proportion of sulfur is too high, the authorities can intervene and hand out punitive measures. The Norwegian company’s mission to track emissions and oil leaks increased by 63 percent in 2020.
– The green assignments are important to us. On the one hand, we have a common responsibility to prevent environmental crime, and on the other hand, there is a commercially high willingness to pay to obtain data so that the regulations can be enforced, says Wiig and continues:
– Gathering such information is groundbreaking, and no one has done it before. Therefore, there are no brake pads and no one says no, unlike other areas where many would rather do it as they have always done.
In terms of revenue, there are apparently few brake pads to be seen either. Operating revenues ended at NOK 66 million in the corona year 2020, up from NOK 31 million the year before.
– We expect a three-digit percentage growth in another year or two or three. This is because both we and the market we are in are growing fast. In addition, we actually lost a quarter last year due to the corona pandemic, so we have a bit to catch up on this year, says Wiig.
Nordic Unmanned is among the leading companies in Europe, and the largest competitors are in countries such as France, Switzerland and Belgium. Wiig sees great opportunities to take important market shares in Germany and the United Kingdom in the future.
In this context, Norway will be very small. But the 41-year-old is pleased that the company’s headquarters are in his hometown, and sees no reason to move despite a growth that is recognized internationally.
– We will stay in Sandnes. It is nice to be in the center and not in a deserted office area, says Sandnesgauken Wiig with a smile.
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