Talent Brought Cencorp to Salo

Cencorp Automation Oy is a global provider of production automation solutions with a long history in the field. Founded in the U.S. in 1978, the company arrived in Finland in the late 1990’s. When Chinese investors acquired the company’s automation business in 2014, Cencorp’s headquarters were relocated to Salo.

“I think there is not just one, but four reasons to why Finland and Salo are interesting to Chinese investors”, says Chunyan Mei-Kuusinen, Secretary to the Board at Cencorp Automation.

“First, there is the high level of Finnish education and innovation, which generates a variety of interesting start-ups. The second reason is Finland’s clean, safe environment that both businesses and employees appreciate. Third, Salo’s history in high-tech industry means there is a pool of talented, experienced engineering professionals. The fourth advantage is Salo’s convenient location in southern Finland, by the expressway between Helsinki and Turku.”

Along with the Salo HQ, Cencorp has subsidiaries in Denmark, Germany and the U.S., and a factory in China. “Europe is our main market, but in the future, our goal is to expand our business to other markets, like China and North America”, Ms. Mei-Kuusinen explains.

Salo is also Cencorp’s main R&D and production site, and the company recently relocated to new, larger facilities in Salo IoT Campus. “The Campus team has put a lot of effort into bringing people and companies together. They have managed to build an international working and learning community that keeps improving each day”, says Ms. Mei-Kuusinen, who also represents Cencorp’s investors in Salo IoT Park Oy’s Board of Directors through Aurora Ventures Oy.