Qamcom turns research into products – from medtech to defence

Kista, in the north of Stockholm, is home to a growing number of deeptech companies working in areas such as defence, medicine and space technology. Qamcom is a Swedish specialist consultancy helping deeptech companies turn ideas into finished products – and a third of its 130 staff hold PhDs.

“Kista has Sweden’s densest cluster of tech and telecoms expertise,” says site manager Sofia Persson Björk.

Deeptech R&D, ventures and engineering

“Deeptech house” sounds more like a bass-heavy Spotify playlist, but it is in fact what Qamcom, the specialist consultancy founded out of Chalmers University of Technology, calls itself. The core idea is simple: turn ideas into finished products using advanced technology.

There is, however, rather more to it than product development and design. Site manager Sofia Persson Björk points out that more than a third of the company’s 130 employees have a PhD to their name. On average, Qamcom’s experts have 16 years of experience in their respective fields.

At times, Qamcom spends time building up expertise within startups in exchange for equity – which has led the company to develop a venture arm of its own.

Pinning down what the company actually does day to day isn’t entirely straightforward. Sofia Persson Björk gives it a go.

“Many companies are experts in their specific core area, but may need our help to add solutions involving, for example, wireless connectivity, radar, signal processing or AI algorithms,” she says.

Sometimes, she explains, a client arrives with an idea and wants help from the very start. Just as often, though, it is about support with an existing product. There is no shortage of questions around regulation and technology choices – particularly when it comes to machine learning, data collection and physical AI.

“It might be a medtech product where our client needs help identifying the requirements for optics and sensors, or choices linked to algorithms and signal processing,” she says.

“Physical AI is starting to become hot now, but it’s something we’ve been working with for 10 years.”

Blood analysis and drone swarms

One concrete example is the blood analysis instrument Eyra, an application-specific confocal microscope. For more than three years, Qamcom has helped its client Mabtech – a Swedish life science company developing laboratory instruments for immunology research – take a research idea from the lab to a commercial product. It is now in active use by pharmaceutical companies and research laboratories.

Another case is the research project Autonomous Drone Swarm for Wildfire Response (internally codenamed Firefly), funded by Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova. The project explores how drone swarms might in future support civilian fire services with both mapping and preventive measures against wildfires – particularly so-called spot fires, where sparks are blown on to new areas at risk.

Trade secrets make photography inside the premises a sensitive matter. But Persson Björk is happy to show off a prototype of one of the project’s drones.

“Firefly is a good proof of how we can work with hardware and software at the same time,” she says.

“We have designed and developed low-cost drones, and built systems that enable autonomous drone swarms to communicate with each other and send data down to the ground.”

Growing with the deeptech cluster

The head office and the bulk of operations are in Gothenburg. Qamcom’s Kista office currently houses 18 employees, with almost as many based in Linköping. A sales office has been set up in the US, and an R&D team works out of Wellington, New Zealand.

“Kista has Sweden’s densest cluster of tech and telecoms expertise. We have many customers nearby and benefit greatly from the ecosystem,” says Persson Björk. “The location makes it easy both to collaborate and to recruit new talent.”

The company’s business model sits well with Kista’s proud history of successful telecoms companies. At the same time, the area is increasingly attracting players in deeptech, defence, medicine and space technology – sectors with a great need for expertise in advanced telecommunications, radar, connectivity and AI. In other words, Qamcom is well positioned for the future, too.

“We work across industries, so Kista becoming more diversified is only positive for us. There are great opportunities here for companies that have research, development and their own production, and need the whole competence chain gathered in one place,” says Persson Björk.

Qamcom is far from lonely as an ecosystem player based in Kista. Here are a few more examples of organizations established in the area, supporting the development and growth of innovation companies.

Strikersoft – IT consultancy, describes itself as a “systems house”

Element Materials – testing partner for materials testing

Intertek – quality assurance, testing, inspection and certification

Syntronic – product development, from R&D through to production and aftermarket activities

Plantvision – specialist consultants in life sciences and industrial digitalisation

Avantor – equipment, products and services for advanced laboratory environments

RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden) – has around a hundred researchers in Kista, including in cybersecurity

Swerim – Swedish research institute for industry-oriented R&D in metals

eBuilder Security – cybersecurity with its own security operations centre (SOC) in Sweden, including round-the-clock monitoring, penetration testing and support with the EU’s NIS2 cybersecurity directive

Init group – automation and systems integration for property, industry and infrastructure, from design to operation and maintenance

Knowit – IT and digitalisation consultancy in technology, design and management

FOI – the Swedish Defence Research Agency, with research spanning defence, security and cyber, among other areas

Eurofins Environment Testing Sweden – environmental testing

Cadence Design Systems – electronic design automation (EDA) and integrated circuit (IC) design tools (supporting advanced product development in electronics)

Tieto Tech Consulting Sweden – IT/tech consulting

K Two Technology Consulting – tech consulting

B&R Industrial Automation – industrial automation

GUARD Automation – automation

TNGSTN Automation Sweden – automation

Nagarro Software – software development/engineering consultancy

Keysight Technologies Sweden – test & measurement, verification

Antmicro – embedded/electronics and open-source-oriented engineering

QAdvis – advisory services

From Kista to the edge of reality

Kista is Stockholm’s buzzing deeptech district – a place where research labs, startups and global tech giants collide just fifteen minutes from the city centre.