Smartvatten® Expands Service to Include Submetering with Verto Acquisition

Smartvatten, specialist in water efficiency, has acquired Verto, fellow Finnish leading provider of apartment level water metering systems. With this move, Smartvatten expands its service from main water meters to submeters, helping its customers fulfill the EU requirements for consumption-based billing and enhancing the accuracy of its leak detection system even further.

Over the past year, Smartvatten has worked on executing its plan of becoming the European champion of water efficiency. Adding submetering to its existing service was the logical next step on this journey, enabling Smartvatten to provide its services not only at the building level, but per unit. With the development of EU legislation focusing on fair billing based on real consumption instead of estimates, Smartvatten can now also assist its customers in preparing for those changes.

Smartvatten is a hardware-enabled SaaS company, providing its customers with a complete solution for real-time monitoring and reporting of water consumption in buildings. Our customers reduce their water costs and the risk of water-related damage, while improving their sustainability performance. The company's purpose-built software analyzes water consumption data from mechanical, digital, and IoT-enabled water meters in a cloud environment to identify consumption patterns and detect leaks.

After extensively screening potential partners, Smartvatten found the best-in-class submetering company in VertoNordic Oy. With more than 35 years of experience, Verto is a very well-established company and brand, and the market leader in Finland for household-specific water metering systems. They are an excellent match for Smartvatten both in values and objectives. "Both companies have done an excellent job in providing the tools and expertise to improve water efficiency," says Jussi Niiniaho, CEO of Smartvatten, "and by combining our services, we will introduce our customers to a completely new and enhanced water efficiency service."

"Verto has been developing and marketing submetering products for more than three decades, and it's been our clear mission to offer first class products and services. Our customers find our products reliable and our services valuable," says Antti Salakka, CEO at Verto. "Smartvatten is a wide reaching company with the same values, targets and ambition Verto has. This makes it the best possible fit for both companies to expand our global footprint and customer offering."

After Norvestor became a majority investor in 2021, Smartvatten has set significant growth targets for the coming years. To achieve the European water champion position, the company is focusing both on organic growth and on expanding through mergers and acquisitions. With the acquisition of Verto, the combined entity's pro-forma turnover in 2022 is expected to be €15 million.

"Smartvatten has steadily expanded its international presence and we now provide our services in 24 countries around the world," Niiniaho says. "Verto has been focused on Finland, but thanks to our large international client base, their best-in-class technology will be shared with a much larger audience."

"For Verto, internationalization has been a clear strategic target during the last years. Joining forces with Smartvatten opens up Verto's product offering for an international audience," Salakka says. "Now, through this partnership we have the potential to expand our sales and offering to all main markets within Europe in the coming years."

Until now, Smartvatten focused on the main water meter level, seeing the whole building as one consumer. "Now that we can monitor individual units, our data becomes even more detailed, and the localization of leaks will be much more specific," Niiniaho says. The expanded service provides automated data for consumption-based billing and enhances leak alerts with more detailed and localized data, allowing Smartvatten to deliver its data to its customers in the most actionable form possible.

The cost of water is expected to rise significantly in the coming years, likely doubling in the next 5-7 years. "There's a lot of potential for water efficiency improvement in the property sector, which will help reduce your water bill," says Niiniaho. "On top of that, it also cuts the costs of energy that come with heating water – and those costs have been increasing for a while now." Since the carbon footprint related to water use is significant, working with Smartvatten helps property owners reach their carbon neutral or net zero targets.

Housing companies and property owners will now also be able to provide their tenants with access to their own water consumption data, a development that Smartvatten is certain will positively impact awareness and sustainable water use, and help individuals save on their water bill in line with the EU legislation.

By adding submeters to its services, Smartvatten aims to offer the best, most scalable and complete solution for its customers in the real estate sector, taking care of every step on the road toward water efficiency. With its SaaS model, the company ensures submetering is easy and affordable, without requiring large initial investments. The company's technology agnostic and hardware independent approach remains unchanged: no matter what type of meters customers already have, Smartvatten can work with any existing meter and system and will always find the best possible solution for its customers.

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More information:

Jussi Niiniaho, CEO at Smartvatten

Telephone: +358 40 821 3116
Email: jussi.niiniaho@smartvatten.com

Name: Antti Salakka, CEO at Verto

Telephone: +358 44 2375 360

Email: antti.salakka@verto.fi

Smartvatten is a rapidly growing water management service company with 70+ full-time employees, with offices in Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and Norway. Smartvatten remotely monitors, measures, and analyzes water consumption and provides leak detection and water efficiency services worldwide. More than 10.000 properties across 24 countries are already experiencing the benefits of the Smartvatten service. Read more at www.smartvatten.com.  

VertoNordic Oy is a manufacturer of high-quality apartment level water metering systems with more than 35 years experience, headquartered in Sastamala, Finland. Focusing on the responsible use of water, their excellent customer service and locally designed and manufactured products and equipment help customers gain insight into their water consumption and prevent waste