Magnus Bakken's company aims to make it easier for industrial players to access their data. Today, many have to cross-reference data sources such as spreadsheets and ERP systems to find relevant operational data.
- Companies in energy and other heavy industries often have extensive digital models of their assets, stemming from engineering processes, maintenance systems or standardization efforts.
This is according to Magnus Bakken, founder and CEO of Data Treehouse. This is what Data Treehouse wants to help companies with.
- In addition, they have invested in infrastructure for storing industrial data, for example, many have large amounts of historical sensor measurements from their facilities stored in the cloud. "Solutions to contextualize this industrial data tend to lock customers and data into an expensive data platform," says Magnus.
By building context with open standards from existing data sources and reusing existing operational data infrastructure, Data Treehouse aims to provide a lightweight alternative with minimal investment.
- A treehouse can be built at low cost on existing infrastructure.
Long experience from the IT industry
Magnus comes from the IT industry and has extensive experience as a software developer and consultant. He has worked for several years in the industrial IT company Prediktor, which is based in Fredrikstad. At Prediktor, he completed an industrial doctorate at NTNU. It was here that he began to toy with the idea of starting his own company.
- "Data Treehouse is based on some of the findings from the project," says Magnus.
He now works in a 20 percent position at USN (University of South-Eastern Norway) as a lecturer. The rest of his time is spent at Data Treehouse.
Joining him on the team is Øivind Rui, who is based in Meløy, southwest of Bodø. From different parts of the country, they make up the team in the newly established company, which already has many plans for the company. The fact that they are spread out is no obstacle to good collaboration.
- The fact that we're located in different parts of the country is fine. It works well for us.
But when your partner is far away, it's good to have a place where you can meet like-minded people. That's why Magnus decided that an office space at Kobben was the right place for him.
- It all started when I started working at USN and was looking for an office. I thought Kobben seemed like a good offer. It's nice to network and meet other people who work with start-ups.
