Turned COVID-19 layoffs into an infection control company

'Our loan from Innovation Norway enabled us to get started. It was absolutely crucial,' says Leif-Jarle Aure, Chair of the Board at Innovern.

At the time, Sykkylven had one of the highest unemployment rates of any municipality in Norway.

'The business community here in Sykkylven is built around manufacturing, with furniture production by far the most important industry. When several manufacturers had to close temporarily, people were furloughed in large numbers,' says Aure.

Amatec, which supplies machinery and production equipment to industry, quickly realised that the world would need large quantities of personal protective equipment. Together with several other local partners, they moved quickly to establish Innovern on 25 March, with the production of surgical face masks as their first goal.

‘When the coronavirus first hit, Norway was heavily dependent on imports of personal protective equipment, including from China. And since the whole world needed this equipment at the same time, the idea was to produce more of it here in Norway,’ says our customer adviser, Kari-Anne Lade Gjørvad.

She says there were many initiatives across the country, but we decided to support Innovern because the company had expertise from relevant specialist communities in furniture manufacturing and industrial machinery, as well as access to available production facilities. We quickly recognised the potential to create new jobs.

'Our local community has extensive expertise in automation, and this was one of the cornerstones of establishing the company: automating the production of face masks,' Aure explains.

The government’s ambition to establish domestic production of personal protective equipment was also recognised. The Prime Minister visited the company and cut the ribbon.

'It has been a successful project that has attracted a great deal of attention and received coverage in both local and national media,' says Gjørvad.

According to Gjørvad, the Innovern case was a strong example of how we can work quickly across departments. Two weeks after receiving the application, we offered the company a loan on favourable terms, with no interest payable for one year.

'It was a very exciting case to work on. We brought together expertise from across our offices, including colleagues with healthcare expertise in Oslo,' she says.

Innovern also secured an agreement with Sykehusinnkjøp for the purchase of 20 million face masks. Aure makes it clear that without this order and our loan financing, they would not have been able to get the company up and running.

‘We gave them valuable support as they got the company off the ground,’ says the chair of the board.

He firmly believes that the difficult situation during the pandemic, with furloughs and unemployment, laid the foundations for a sustainable and innovative company. The situation across Sykkylven is now very different from what it was in March 2020.

‘This went from being a crisis for the entire municipality to a real success story: from having one of the highest unemployment rates in the country to advertising around 150 vacancies. As someone who was born and raised in Sykkylven, I find that especially gratifying,’ says Gjørvad.

And the company is planning for further growth.

‘Our production is becoming increasingly automated, and we are discussing whether to expand into more types of infection control equipment,’ says Aure.