Startup story: KrattWorks X ESA BIC Estonia

Each year, dozens of high-potential startups develop their product or service in Tehnopol Startup Incubator’s main program and special accelerators. One of these special accelerators is ESA BIC Estonia, which is part of the European Space Agency’s business incubation network, supporting space-related startups with access to expertise, business support, and a wider ecosystem. KrattWorks is an ESA BIC Estonia alumnus, representing one of the companies that has gone through the programme and continued its growth journey.

KrattWorks produces Electronic Warfare resilient reconnaissance and strike drones as well as aerial targets. The company was founded in 2018 by an 8-people founding team. Today, KrattWorks has grown to more than 80 people.

The following questions are answered by Mattias Luha, Founder of KrattWorks.

What inspired you to launch your startup?

In our bootstrapping phase, we focused on forest fire detection with drones. This was a very good problem to solve – because large landscape fires cause 15…20% of global greenhouse gas emissions; 1…2% reduction of total carbon emissions would be possible just by avoiding 10% of those fires.

What have been your biggest challenges and failures so far, and what are your biggest wins? What key lessons have you learned along the way?

We have made many mistakes and will probably make even more mistakes. We ran with very limited funding for the first 5 years with runway constantly less than 3 months, more than once less than 3 days. We persisted and managed to cross the valley of death.

What drives you to keep going, even on tough days?

It is very rare to have 8 founders: in our case it was a deliberate decision – we did not think raising money or reaching first orders would go easy, and it did not. If we would have started the company with the aim to earn money, we would have quit long ago (Estonians are known for their stubbornness). It only makes sense to build a startup for the mission, as this will keep you going through the hard times.

What sets your startup apart from competitors – either in the space sector or in your broader target market?

We have 3 success hypothesis:

• Products are designed to be scalable;
• We have a significant cost advantage due to ground-up design;
• Massive amount of drones can be produced quickly by subcontractors.

Why did you choose to apply to ESA BIC Estonia? How has the programme supported you so far?

ESA BIC has a relatively easy application process, less bureaucracy in reporting compared to other grants and Tartu Science Park offers good support for the enrolled companies.

What advice would you give to future applicants?

• Validate your idea with the end users as early as possible.
• Plan development in smaller steps with frequent “checkpoints” and tests (with End users, if possible).
• Multiply all difficult sections of the development as well as the effort needed to go from prototype to product by π – by our experience, it takes 3,14 times more time than initially planned to reach to the solution.

What’s your vision for your startup in the next year, and where do you see it in five years?

KrattWorks is aspiring to grow to one of the largest UAV companies in Europe.

Which Estonian or international startup do you think could become the next space or deep tech unicorn?

No need to give praise to our competitors nor suitable to mention ourselves. Space will probably eat big junks of environmental mapping and telecom sectors and I would look for the companies who are already growing in those sectors.

Which books, podcasts, publications, or influencers in space technology or entrepreneurship do you follow and recommend?

• Books: Ayn Rand + “the startup classics”.
• Podcast: The Founders Notes by David Senra.
• Influencer: anyone who can help you to understand how to think about systems, processes and complex problems.

ESA BIC Estonia, led by Sparkup Tartu Science Park in collaboration with Tehnopol, is part of the European Space Agency’s network of business incubators across Europe. It helps innovative Estonian startups bring space technologies to new markets, offering up to 60,000€ in product development support, specialised mentoring, international network access, and business development loans.

If you are working on a space-related innovation, the current application round is open until May 1st! Learn more here: https://www.esabic.ee