Ubiquity Founder: Fredrik Ryden of Olis Robotics
Learn how the Olis Robotics platform is bringing automation to industrial robotics and how CEO Fredrik Ryden has lived this problem for decades.
Today we spotlight a founder who leverages software beyond the screen to transform an industry. As always, each Ubiquity founder has their own nerdy background (we define nerdiness as having a deep obsession) that led to founding their startup.
Meet Fredrik Ryden, CEO of Olis Robotics, a platform for video-based diagnostics and remote control of industrial robotic systems. Ubiquity Ventures invested in Olis Robotics in their 2023 pre-seed round.
Can you sum up what Olis Robotics does?
Olis is a plug-and-play tool for industrial automation cells that lets users do video diagnostics and remote control. Customers use Olis to see the root cause of robot failure instantly and issue a fix remotely.
Tell us more about Olis Robotics’ product.
This is a tool that has never existed before. System integration has been underserved by software, leaving teams without the tools that they need to meet the demands of the current labor climate.
Customers are screaming for automation. But unlike the customers of yesterday who were quite technically skilled, now when you're introducing automation to a broader market, it needs to be a lot simpler to use and operate.
We've come a long way in making the robots and the equipment easier to use, but it's still hard to run automation. It's hard to diagnose a problem in the field, and our tools automate a lot of that by pulling the logs and video recordings and bundling it all up in a way that makes it easy to communicate to a potentially remote third party.
What is the story behind the founding of Olis Robotics?
I've been remote controlling robots for 15 years now, which is kind of a unique thing to be working on. I first teleoperated surgical robots in grad school back in 2010, and from there, I ended up working with Underwater Subsea Machinery for the U.S. Navy and oil and gas companies.
These are environments that are hard to get to, and because the robots need to go deeper than humans are able to, we must remote control them. We built out all of this technology, and I got a lot of experience in how to remote control in a way that's intuitive, but also safety-compliant and efficient.
We then realized that the same technology and methodologies could actually be used for industrial automation - the millions of robots that are operating in manufacturing plants and warehouses, etc. We took the step to start to productize that and turned the advanced technology we had into an impressive plug-and-play product that just about any robot integrator can use.
And that's how we got to where we are today. We're partnered with the world's largest robot brands, and we're working with them on deploying this technology.
How did you notice the need for video-based diagnostics for robotic systems?
I was showing people the advanced remote control technology that we had, and every person that I met would share an anecdote of when they experienced wasting a week diagnosing some issue that a remote tool like this could have easily caught. I started picking up pretty quickly that there might be something here. And because our technology was so advanced, it got a lot of attention. We got to talk to a lot of people, and we gained understanding that there was a broader need for this type of tool.
People didn't quite understand how it could be productized even though it was necessary. But it was pretty clear that this is something that people wanted, and they just didn't quite know how they could adopt it. That told me that this product HAD to be built.
What attempts did you and your team try before getting to the current solution?
We built up some initial features based on our assumptions of what our customers needed, which stemmed from our interpretation of the anecdotes we were hearing. We thought that the problem was primarily unfamiliar end-users and that they might need help on the simplest cells.
But the further into this we’ve gotten, the more we’ve learned that there is some serious value for the robot experts - the people that have integrated robots for 20, 30, 40 years. They really see the value because of the complexity of the automation that they build. There are manufacturing operations and food operations where downtime costs can run in the millions of dollars per hour just in lost production because the automation isn’t running. So I think it wasn't so much a mistake, but it was definitely a learning journey. The value wasn't necessarily where we initially thought it was.
We think of nerds as people who are obsessed with something. What are you nerdy about or obsessed with?
I'm definitely obsessed with robotics. I started coding as early as a teenager, and for me, robots are the next step for computers. It’s sort of the embodiment of computing; I don't necessarily think it needs to be humanoid or look anything like humans, but it's a natural progression of technology.
I've been fascinated by this ever since I worked in my hometown in Sweden at the steel forge, the paper mill and in food distribution; I felt like a lot of the things that I had to do by hand should and could be done by robots. I've been really passionate about that, and I've been infuriated at times with how complicated it is for someone who actually has the budget to adopt and run automation.
I get frustrated when people say, “automation is a journey” or “digital transformation is a journey”. It’s often described as something that is hard, and that infuriates me. I believe that when we pair experienced robot integrators with the right technology, it doesn’t have to be complicated. I'm so excited to finally get to start to show this to the world.
I have a creative side, too. For me, programming is also being creative (even though I'm a CEO now and I don't do as much software development anymore). It has always been a passion of mine to really architect and design things on the computer, whether it's making music or making software. I also enjoy traveling and spending time with my family.
What would you tell your past self if you could give them advice?
Don’t assume everyone else has all of the answers. I think it's easy for small companies to look at big companies and think that they know everything because they’ve been around for years and years. It’s important to be humble and recognize, “I don't know everything”, but also to understand that people are just human, even if they work in big companies and powerful positions, and to approach everyone the same way.
Don't unnecessarily put people up on a pedestal; reach out and start talking to people sooner. Network! Build less and talk more. Learn what the problems actually are, because they rarely are what you initially thought.
What’s your advice to budding technical founders who haven’t yet taken the leap to launch their new company?
There is a lot of homework that you can do in terms of building the first prototype, but also in talking to people and lining up those initial customers to at least validate your idea. I do think it's important to get that validation from the right people, and it can be confusing.
There are a lot of false signs when it comes to validation. I think it's important to reach out to the top players in the industry - no matter how intimidating it might be - to try to get their feedback. I understand now that their feedback is often vastly different from the feedback you might get from the person who lives down the street and works roughly in the same industry.
Better data sooner; it's going to make you a lot more informed when you do pull the trigger and leave your comfortable day job, and when you raise money and so forth.
Ubiquity Ventures — led by Sunil Nagaraj — is a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on startups solving real-world physical problems with "software beyond the screen", often using smart hardware or machine learning.
If your startup fits this description, fill out the 60-second Ubiquity pitch form and you’ll hear back shortly.