Sometimes the most impactful innovation stories don’t happen overnight, but they do stand the test of time. Recently featured in a Finnish industry magazine called Puunvuoro*, the collaboration between Wiiste and Stora Enso shows what can happen when a clear industrial challenge meets the right startup at exactly the right moment.
A Challenge Meets Its Match
Back in 2012, Wiiste was founded by Risto-Matti Salmi, Sami Raivio, and Toni Luopajärvi to develop new solutions for moisture measurement in concrete. Fast forward to 2018, and their focus took an unexpected turn when they received an email and soon after a phone call from Combient Foundry inviting them to the Value Proposition Days. There, they heard a pitch from Stora Enso about a challenge: how to monitor moisture in wooden structures throughout the construction process.
That sparked immediate interest. As Jyripekka Hiltunen, Development Portfolio Manager at Stora Enso, recalls:
I gave a presentation to startups at the Combient Foundry workshop about the challenge of moisture monitoring in wood construction. The very next day, Wiiste’s Toni Luopajärvi and Risto-Matti Salmi presented their idea to solve it.
Stora Enso was seeking a solution that could track wood moisture through the entire supply chain and construction process, a capability no existing solution offered.
Ideally, we could follow up the moisture content inside of wood through the whole supply chain, and this is exactly the problem we wanted to solve.
Hiltunen explains.
From Idea to Industry Breakthrough
Quick ideation led to a collaboration that soon resulted in a groundbreaking industry innovation. By 2020, Wiiste and Stora Enso had co-developed the world’s first IoT-based moisture meter for wood, a breakthrough that positioned both companies at the forefront of digital construction. The device uses mounting screws as electrodes to measure the wood’s contour profile in two directions, providing real-time, continuous insights into moisture conditions during the transport, storage, and construction of wood-based buildings and continuous monitoring even after project completion.
The development process was agile and fast-paced. We were able to test the prototypes on actual construction sites during the development, which gave us valuable information about the measuring environment and usability. Combient Foundry opened entirely new development paths for us. We hadn’t thought about wood moisture measurement before, but the challenge and funding from Stora Enso helped us create something completely new.
says Toni Luopajärvi, Product Manager at Mitta Oy and co-founder of Wiiste.
Trust, Traction, and Global Reach
From CLT rooftops in Melbourne to pilot programs in Canada, the solution quickly gained traction. In 2023, Wiiste joined Mitta Oy, expanding its reach and enabling broader adoption of digital monitoring technologies in the built environment.
Mass timber construction is on the rise as a sustainable alternative to concrete and steel, but it also presents new challenges, particularly around moisture management. Wiiste’s innovation, born out of a Combient Foundry challenge, meets a critical need in this space: ensuring safety, structural integrity, and performance over the building lifecycle.
For startups, credibility is often the barrier to market entry. Collaboration with a leading player like Stora Enso gave Wiiste’s solution both technical validation and commercial visibility.
At Stora Enso, every business challenge starts with finding the best possible solution, whether internally or through startup collaboration. Combient Foundry has become a key tool in that process.
Jenny Müller Wahlman, Head of R&D, Stora Enso
Scaling Impactful Innovation with Combient Foundry
At Combient Foundry, we saw early on that Wiiste’s technical capability and responsiveness made them a strong fit for Stora Enso’s moisture monitoring challenge. This collaboration is a prime example of how quickly real innovation can happen when industrial needs meet startup agility. We’re proud to have played a role in bringing these two teams together and accelerating a market-first solution. The success of Wiiste and Stora Enso continues to inspire how we approach every new opportunity: challenge-led, impact-driven and built to scale globally.
Rethinking Innovation Through Collaboration
Combient Foundry flips the traditional innovation model. Rather than starting with a startup idea looking for a market, Foundry begins with a clear industry challenge and a partner ready to invest. That structure allowed Wiiste to rapidly prototype, test, and scale a new product in a domain they had never considered before.
I gave a presentation at the Combient Foundry event, and the next day Wiiste was already pitching a solution. That’s the kind of fast response and creative thinking we’re looking for.
Jyripekka Hiltunen, Development Portfolio Manager, Stora Enso
Today, Wiiste’s solution is not just a Nordic success, it’s been tested and adopted across multiple continents, proving the global relevance of innovation born in a Foundry business opportunity.
Stora Enso continues to work with Combient Foundry today, launching new challenges in areas like AI-driven market analysis, advanced recycling, and procurement optimization.
Read more about Combient Foundry and our open opportunities from here: https://combientfoundry.com/opportunities/
