Filip Askviken has joined the Telness spin off only a year after its launch and as the company aims to expand its cloud-PBX offering.
Askviken said: “Telness Tech has made a big name for itself in the Swedish telecommunications space in a short space of time by going against the status quo. I’m looking forward to building their position in Sweden and internationally by ensuring we meet not only the customer needs of today, but those of the future.
“We operate in a huge space with a need for digitalisation and improved user experience. Legacy systems have made slow technical progress. This in combination with more complex products and selective customers have given regular telecom players a bad reputation. We will continue to build first ranking user experiences, and scale those to help telecom players and their end customers do the same.”
Telness was founded by former Telenor exec Martina Klingvall together with Telness CTO Jonas Cedenwing Telness Tech followed in the spring in 2021. Cedenwing is its CEO with Sara Rasmussen in the position of CCO.
Telness Tech describes itself as part of a new wave of European "teltech" start-ups that are looking to "revolutionise the tired telecoms market". It has a cloud-PBX offering which now has "several customers" and went live with the first partner in October.
As a fully independent start up Telness Tech in September raised €1.5 million in post-seed funding taking its total raise to date to €6.5 million. Investors include angel investor Viveka Ekberg and the Gothenburg-based JCE Investments.
Bringing Askviken into the fold brings further start-up and funding expertise to the team.
In 2013 Askviken founded Metapic, an influencer affiliate marketing business that was sold to Tradedoubler in 2017. He’s also part of the Jury of Venture Cup and was previously Chapter Director of Startup Grind Gothenburg.
Cedenwing said: “The telecoms and communications spaces are undergoing massive disruption. We need to ensure we offer products that solve communication needs of today, and that we’re preparing for the future too. The market is constantly changing, behaviours are adapting and there’s a massive increase in competition both from incumbent players and tech companies such as Zoom.
“For this reason, I’m very pleased to announce that we have hired a Head of Product to spear-head our product development. With years of experience in changing various industries from the ground up and building products from zero to hundreds of thousands of users, Askviken enters at a crucial time where our initial traction has propelled us into greater demand. This role will help us meet increased competition and changing customer needs.”
