Sami Niemi

I love technology, and the magic it enables

Products are often too complex and can always be simplified while letting the user do more.

I like to think beyond the current established ways to do things – there is always a way to do things very differently and very much better.

I am really obsessed with supporting portfolio companies to create a sense of purpose, to establish a set of beliefs and values they can use in their work, and they become less dependent on detailed guidance.
Early on my great passion was to explore the capabilities of computers to express things visually; initially by coding demos in machine language on Commodore 64, finally leading to founding of Scalado in 2000. Scalado grew to become the leadingmobile imaging software company with more than 1 billion licenses sold worldwide to essentially the entire mobile telecom industry. Customers included the leading smartphone companies licensing Scalado’s software to their devices for innovative imaging capabilities, as well as ASIC companies licensing Scalado’s IPR to ensure advantages in sales toward the same smartphone brands.
I spent huge amounts of time travelling in Asia and US to meet customers and partners to better understand how to improve our products, IPR, and most importantly connecting and engaging with the top executives of our industry making them adopt our vision as their own – naturally moving us to the core of their product.

Scalado was successfully acquired by Nokia in 2012. Nokia’s handset business was subsequently acquired by Microsoft, where I served globally as the Director of Photography in the Windows group, until 2016 when I joined Spintop full time.
But, I had been involved with Spintop from the early days: initially as an investor in fund I and II, later as senior advisor and member of the investment committee before taking on a Partner role.
I am also a co-founder of The Ground, a creative start-up work space in Malmö, Sweden.
I love great products and scaling of product-based businesses internationally! I have also had an opportunity to spend significant time getting deep into the trending technologies such as AR/VR, AI/ML, Block chain, and Crypto.

As an entrepreneur, I believe that there is no such thing as good luck in long term success, it’s all about active creation of opportunities, understanding which ones are real and worth pursuing, and consistent long term execution toward your vision with a great and empowered team living and breathing the vision.

Education: MSc Electrical Engineering, Lund Institute of Technology