Contact information

Postal address:
P.O. Box 13500
FI-00076 Aalto, FINLAND

Visiting address:
Tietotie 3 (Otaniemi)
02150 Espoo
FINLAND
(Map)

Tel: +358-9-470 26068 (Director)

(More detailed contact information)

Supporting members

UMK | Uusien materiaalien keskus | Center for New Materials

Beneq - Production and research equipment for advanced thin

film coatings

Beneq was established in 2005 as an MBO spin-out from Nextrom (ex. Nokia-Maillefer) with a competence background in the fiber optics industry. As a coating equipment provider, the company possesses special skills in the understanding of industrial value-chain thinking. On the one hand, Beneq is a technology-push company when implementing their ALD (Atomic Layer Deposition) and aerosol coating (nHALO® and nAERO®) technologies in certain existing industrial applications. On the other hand, Beneq is a technology-pull company when offering solutions to industrial challenges, we can say problems, and other companies contact Beneq for this very reason, regardless of the technology involved.

In January 2008, Beneq won the second national Future Winners -competition, which aims to single out the most potential and successful young growth company in Finland. The competition is arranged by Helsingin Sanomat, the largest daily newspaper in Finland. In May 2010, Beneq was awarded the prestigious Nanotech Finland Award in the category for Best Business Potential.

When Beneq started out five years ago, there were 12 enthusiastic employees. Today, the number is 65 and growing. According to marketing manager Joe Pimenoff, Beneq expects to employ around 150 persons worldwide five years from now, including more than 100 in Finland. To get more potential growth-companies in material related technologies, Pimenoff believes there should be greater visions of the business opportunities, more people with skills to manage the technical and administrative challenge of starting, managing, and handling the growth of a successful business idea and thirdly, more money, be that public funding or investments. As a fourth factor, Pimenoff points out more courage to just do it.

Beneq has from the very beginning supported the idea of open innovation, collaboration and discovering together. Joe Pimenoff acknowledges that without their friends in science, industrial partners and numerous collaborative bodies, Beneq would not be were the company is today. Therefore, Beneq urges all centers of excellence, universities and related laboratories to be open to co-operation and challenging real-life projects and adapt to a mode of development that is planned to benefit both science and industrial development. There really is no other realistic future in the high-tech genre of science and development, Pimenoff concludes.

Runar Törnqvist