Startup Story: Wayren X Tehnopol Startup Incubator 

Tehnopol Startup Incubator is proud to welcome Wayren in our growth programme. Wayren is developing a platform for data exchange that is suitable for even the most difficult environments, for instance countries that are in state of war.  

Battlefield is an extremely challenging environment resulting in unreliable networks with limited speeds and patchy connectivity. In addition, large variation of equipment, technologies and specialized systems in use make an effective digital transformation hard to achieve. Most software deployed on battlefield must tackle these kinds of problems on their own. 

Wayren saw an opportunity to allow others to achieve more by creating a data exchange platform that abstracts network for applications and is designed for tactical environment. Abstracting network layer allows industry to concentrate on their applications and rely on data exchange platform to deliver data to right places regardless of how network is set up. They are implementing support for great variety of different networking devices with both digital and analogue interfaces and ensure interoperability between networks. 

Wayren’s platform will consider differences and limitations of hardware, prioritize data, and form a mesh network with distributed database between nodes. Most importantly, they are developing a data synchronization protocol that is resilient to packet loss and is efficient in bandwidth use. The platform is not limited to the defence and security sector, as for example the IoT market is also dealing with a lack of reliable connectivity. However, Wayren is aiming to prove their solution with tactical use-cases. 

Let’s get to know them a little better! 

How did you come up with the idea to found a startup?  

We have been deeply involved with improving national defence by designing and developing our national command & control system as conscripts, volunteers, and servicemen. We decided that we are in position of helping defence industry with our solution that was born from real-world knowledge and lessons learned. Since Estonian Defence Forces started the cyber conscripts project, young talented professionals have started to take an initiative in enhancing Estonian defence systems. We hope to enable these initiatives and the industry generally to build their exciting products.  

What have been the biggest challenges/failures and the biggest wins so far? 

As an early-stage company the available resources are limited and often time to market and other such factors are critical to success. As such our biggest challenge has been and continues to be to focusing our efforts to what delivers most value. Our efforts have been validated by fact, that quite a few industries leading companies have decided to start process of setting up our technology for validation and testing showing great interest in our efforts. 

Why did you join Tehnopol Startup Incubator? 

Tehnopol Startup Incubator is an excellent platform for us to get the mentoring and consultations that we need to get us off the ground. The program enables us to reach out to partners, clients, and investors for us to get to the critical MVP stage. As a next step we can lean on Tehnopol’s international professional network when further scaling our business model. 

Where do you see your startup in 1 year’s time? And in 5 year’s time? 

In one year, our goal is to have an MVP in use with at least one test client. In addition, we aim to cooperate with at least two partners to demonstrate the capabilities of the platform in building future smart systems. In five years, we aim to be the leading data exchange platform in the defence and security market with a growing market share in the IoT market. 

Who will be the next Estonian unicorn? 

We are! After we have been validated as an innovative data exchange platform, we are going to expand by building more tools and software that enable others to achieve more. 

What kind of books/podcasts/magazines (or top names in your field) do you follow and would recommend to other founders? 

“Hit Refresh” by Satya Nadella is a great book about how we must transform as a collective and strive towards better future by empowering others and how important empathy is in achieving those goals. “ReWork” is another good source for practical guidance for how to effectively work as a small business. 

If you’d get a chance to meet with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, what would you ask them? 

It is always interesting to know other entrepreneurs’ mindset or thought process when starting out. I would ask about their early stage experience and what would be their recommendations or others in that situation. 

Keep an eye on Wayren on Linkedin.

Startup Story series introduces the up-and-coming startups that are part of Tehnopol Startup Incubator’s growth programme and whose journey is worth keeping an eye on. Startup Stories can be found here.