The story

It all started with seven friends. Finland is the land of technically-oriented engineers and this is one of the stories that wouldn’t exist without them. In the late 1980s, our group of engineers were working for oil companies. Back then, unmanned gas stations were just being introduced in Finland, and they realized that some automation could be really handy. Of course, at that time, nobody was talking about integration platforms and automation.

So, they brought on board two techies to help them code an integration platform, and that's how Frends was born. By now, you're probably curious about the name, but we'll get to that in a bit. The automation they created handled tasks like checking if a gas station needed more fuel or if someone needed to empty the cash box. Using dial-up modems, the system connected to every gas station, automatically collected data, and transformed it into an understandable format.

The system was groundbreaking for its time, and the user interface was just as unique. Everything was made visual using a workflow language, enabling users to follow the process visually. We're not exaggerating when we say this was about 15 years ahead of its time.

But wait - what about the name?

We get a lot of questions about the origin and meaning of our name. One of the most common assumptions is that it’s a wordplay on “friends,” leaving out one letter. But that’s not the case. Remember the dial-up modems we mentioned earlier? The name actually comes from our initial integration use case, which was essentially a Front End Dialing System, aka Frends.

From a Tiny Player to a Trusted Partner

Frends remained a small company for a long time, happy with its initial clients and not aiming for rapid growth. However, we made a game-changing move in 2005 to build our very own product atop third-party technologies, sparking our growth by a whopping 50%.

Then, in came the Swedes. Finland and Sweden have always had a friendly rivalry, whether in ice hockey or business. While Finns have certainly possessed the skills to build technology companies, Swedes have excelled in achieving international growth—something that has sparked a bit of envy among the Finns.

It turned out that a touch of Swedish magic was needed to further scale up Frends’ business. When HIQ, a Swedish company, acquired Frends, it accelerated our international growth. For the acquisition, we can thank Jukka Rautio who has also been our captain since 2010.

Today, we are a trusted partner for more than 4,000 companies and organizations, including those providing critical infrastructure. We help them to automate their processes, streamline data flows, and achieve their crucial business objectives.

Staying true to our roots, we maintain a visual approach to everything we do. We aim to democratize integrations, empowering not just IT departments but also business lines to operate and control our platform. We take pride in our highly satisfied and loyal clients, as showcased in our customer case studies.

Our story is far from over. Want to join us on this journey? Discover the benefits of the most user-friendly integration platform by booking a demo or reading more about our solution.