Photo: Vegvisir
Vegvisir – a young company providing visibility
Estonian-Croatian start-up Vegvisir provides a unique solution that offers visibility to crew of armoured vehicles.
by Mari Peegel
“One of our co-founders had the idea that it is necessary to give the crews of armoured vehicles a better understanding of what is happening around them. He had personally experienced in Afghanistan, Mali and other mission areas that the visibility in the armoured vehicle is very poor,” said Ingvar Pärnamäe, CEO and co-Founder of Vegvisir.
“The military’s need for our product - a Mixed Reality Situational Awareness System (MRSAS) - was clearly there: we are talking about armoured vehicles, which cost a lot, not to mention soldiers whose lives are priceless,” explained Pärnamäe. After the idea was born, people who saw the commercial value of the solution, joined the Vegvisir team. “One of the co-founders was a Croatian company called ORQA, which produces drone flying technologies. Based on their technology, we saw that it was possible to solve the visibility problem,” expanded Pärnamäe. Vegvisir has been operating for three and a half years, and last autumn the company launched its first finished product. Until then, intensive research and development activities took place. “Our technology is novel, and so far no one else in the world has it in this form,” added Pärnamäe. Vegvisir has now secured its first customers, which, according to Pärnamäe, confirms the market demand for their product. While Pärnamäe cannot disclose the names of the customers yet, he did confirm that Vegvisir is collaborating with the Estonian Defence Forces. “Since 2022, we have been testing our technologies in the field with EDF. One of our customers is DefSecIntel, an Estonian company, which saw a market for our product and took it to its customers to review,” said Pärnamäe. Regarding competitors, Pärnamäe noted that in today's market, no other company provides a package comparable to what Vegvisir offers. “This does not mean that there is no competition at all. There is, no doubt, because the same problems can be solved a different ways or by combining solutions. Our biggest competitors are companies in Israel, Germany and the USA. There have been attempts to make a similar product and some results have also been achieved,” commented Pärnamäe. However, Vegvisir considers its solution to be more reliable and technically much more advanced. “We are able to offer a complete solution, regardless of the type of armoured vehicle. We have both manned and unmanned vehicle solutions. We can display a single visual for all types of machines. With this, it is possible to perform fleet management: control a whole number of machines at the same time. We offer an experience that where a person looks around with virtual glasses and sees the world in a natural way - compared to our competitors, this is a completely different level,” said Pärnamäe. Speaking about the price of the product, Pärnamäe said that expensive is a very relative term in the defence industry. “In the end, it all boils down to what value the technology provides the militarily, and if your task is to be informed in the most critical situations, the defence forces are ready to pay for it, because human lives and security of equipment are behind it. The prices in the defence industry are definitely different than those in the civilian world. This does not mean that our product is terribly expensive. If you compare the prices with our competitors, we are inferior to them in terms of price,” stated Pärnamäe. Vegvisir often uses subcontractors and does not manufacture all components, such as cameras and cables, themselves. In terms of business, Vegvisir has followed a classic start-up path. “Initially, we focused on securing investments to bring new products to market. Now, we are in the phase of generating the revenue that our investors have been anticipating. We are a start-up operating in two countries, Estonia and Croatia, but we deliver to a much wider range of markets,” Pärnamäe said.