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The PLAATO Story
How it all started
When PLAATO’s founders Pål and Michael met in 2016, they were keenly aware of some of the pain-points that brewers and homebrewers felt in the brewing process. With Pål’s brother being a professional brewer himself, he was able to share insight into the brewing process.
For all the talk of smart technologies and Industry 4.0, most brewers relied on manual sampling or similar to control the most time intensive part of beer manufacturing - fermentation. Pål is an Engineer by trade and Michael an Industrial Designer, and together they have the skill and ambition to bring affordable data-driven fermentation technology to every brewer and homebrewer around the world.
By 2017, PLAATO was founded - and product development of the PLAATO Airlock for homebrewers was underway. The development was funded through a Kickstarter campaign, which was oversubscribed by almost sixfold, with over 1400 backers. The Airlock was awarded the prestigious Red Dot Award in 2018 for its industrial design.
PLAATO always innovates based on brewer requirements and pain-points. We identified that most homebrewers using kegs struggled to keep track of inventory. We found a smart solution: A custom built keg scale with connected high precision load cells to give our customers a precise weight reading and insights into each pour. The Keg Management System was launched through a 2019 Kickstarter campaign that again oversubscribed fivefold, with over 600 backers. The Keg Management System was awarded two Red Dot awards in 2020 for its industrial design and as a smart product.
Building a track record for high quality sensors and award-winning design
One of the most important aspects of the work we do at PLAATO is to listen to our customers. When we saw that our loyal users, professional brewers at day, and homebrewers at night, had more sophisticated and affordable technology available for their home brew than their professional brew, we knew we could help them.
Our team got to work. In Spring 2021 we are proud to say that we have designed, prototyped, and launched the PLAATO PRO. This state of the art sensor upgrades any professional fermenter to a smart fermenter, giving the brewers real-time data on their fermenting brews available from anywhere on their smartphones, thereby enabling benefits of time savings, quality control, and increased repeatability.
The last few years have been an incredible journey for PLAATO. Today we are proud to have grown the team from 4 to 12 dedicated multinational employees, we have built a professional board with strong financial backing, and sold more than 20 000 products in 84 countries (and counting). We’re proud to work closely with some of the leading brewers and brands around the world.
Cheers to the journey ahead!
