spogen.ai, a Helsinki-based startup developing voice- and image-based assistants for heavy machinery, has closed a pre-seed funding round led by FOV Ventures, with participation from angel investors in Finland and the U.S. The company’s product is designed to support equipment operators in real time by providing hands-free guidance and troubleshooting. The funding will be used to advance development, expand pilot programs, and build out partnerships across sectors including agriculture and manufacturing. Current field deployments include use in tractors and seed drills through the EIT Food Test Farms Programme, with partners such as Valtra, Väderstad, Lännen Tractors, and NHK Group.
The cost of downtime in essential industries like food, infrastructure, or raw materials is simply too high. Heavy machinery operations can’t afford to rely on age-old practices or assumptions. Out in the field, when something goes wrong or a setting is unclear, operators don’t carry manuals or have time to call around in search of support. Meanwhile, machines are only getting more complex as the demand for efficiency keeps rising.
Growing up in the Finnish countryside, spogen.ai co-founder and CEO Joonas Koivuniemi saw firsthand how rising machine complexity led to steeper learning curves. As equipment became more advanced, operators could not rely as much on informal knowledge, trial and error, or peer support to get the job done. Years later, with the emergence of language models, Koivuniemi recognized the opportunity to bring clarity and better efficiency by building technology that makes machines easier to operate.
“People assume there is little change in traditional fields, but they’ve been evolving constantly, and now the pace is accelerating,” said Koivuniemi.
This served as the setting for spogen.ai. Koivuniemi teamed up with a group of seasoned engineers and product builders with deep roots in AI and industrial software to transform how people interact with the ever-evolving machinery. Founded in February 2024, spogen.ai launched its first Smart Assistant pilots just seven months later. Today, after successful pilots and raising market interest, spogen.ai announces the close of its Pre-Seed funding round led by FOV Ventures, with participation from respected angel investors across Finland and the U.S. The funding will fuel its mission to put voice-enabled AI into every machine cabin and eliminate guesswork, confusion, and downtime.
“We believe spogen.ai has the potential to redefine how humans interact with machines,” said Petri Rajahalme, Partner at FOV Ventures. “They’re solving a huge, overlooked usability problem in a sector desperate for innovation.”
spogen.ai’s voice- and image-based Smart Assistant acts like a helpful co-pilot inside the cabin. It answers questions in real time, step-by-step guidance, and can even assist with troubleshooting and repairs.
Over the past six months, the technology has been tested across forestry equipment, compact loaders, waste management systems, and agricultural tractors. Results have shown measurable gains in onboarding speed, error reduction, and operator satisfaction.
“Heavy equipment can now self-drive and self-diagnose,” said Joonas Koivuniemi. “But most machines still can’t explain their own features. That’s what we’re fixing – enabling machines to speak the operator’s language, not the other way around.”
To accelerate adoption and align with industry needs, spogen.ai has formed strategic partnerships with key machinery and technology providers. Among these is Lännen Tractors, an international manufacturer of smart mobile multipurpose machinery and part of the Finnish defence and security technology consortium Summa Defence Group, which is collaborating with spogen.ai to explore AI applications in multipurpose machinery. Additionally, spogen.ai is working with the NHK Group, a leading name in agricultural machinery and technology, to improve productivity and enhance the end-user experience in agricultural equipment.
spogen.ai’s Smart Assistant has also been deployed in real-life farming operations as part of the EIT Food Test Farms Programme. The pilot features hands-on use with a Valtra N Series tractor and a Väderstad seed drill. Both professional operators and students use the assistant in their daily work using voice prompts and on-screen visuals.
This type of collaboration and hands-on feedback loop is central to spogen.ai’s ethos: building technology that works with real operators, not just for them.
The success of these initiatives and milestones has generated strong market interest. spogen.ai secured four additional partnerships in May alone, signaling that the market is ready for more intuitive machine operations.
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Read the orginal article: https://arcticstartup.com/spogen-raises-pre-seed/
