Ood­io update: Oulu pilot under­way and UK launch next

Oulu-based baby tech­nol­o­gy start­up Ood­io Oy is tak­ing its next step towards inter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion, with the UK launch of its Oodi app at The Baby Show, held at Olympia Lon­don on 23–25 Octo­ber 2026.

Oodi is designed to help par­ents get a clear­er pic­ture of their baby’s cry­ing over time. Rather than rely­ing only on mem­o­ry dur­ing an exhaust­ing peri­od of fam­i­ly life, par­ents can see when cry­ing hap­pened, how long it last­ed and how pat­terns change over days and weeks.

The devel­op­ment of Oodi has com­bined par­ent research, input from health­care pro­fes­sion­als and real-world pilot activ­i­ties. Ood­io has inter­viewed around 200 par­ents dur­ing devel­op­ment, and in a sur­vey of 170 par­ents, more than 80% report­ed hav­ing expe­ri­enced uncer­tain­ty about whether their baby’s amount of cry­ing was nor­mal.

One of the most impor­tant insights from the company’s work so far is that cry­ing data alone does not tell the whole sto­ry.

“Two babies can cry for the same amount of time, while two par­ents can expe­ri­ence that cry­ing very dif­fer­ent­ly,” says Satu Niemelä, COO and co-founder of Ood­io Oy. “The more we have spo­ken with par­ents and health­care pro­fes­sion­als, the clear­er it has become that we need to under­stand both what is hap­pen­ing with the baby and how the fam­i­ly is expe­ri­enc­ing it.”

From Lap­land Test­bed to Oulu child health clin­ics

Dur­ing spring 2026, three pub­lic health nurs­es par­tic­i­pat­ed in an eval­u­a­tion with Lap­land Test­bed, explor­ing how auto­mat­i­cal­ly col­lect­ed cry­ing infor­ma­tion could sup­port fam­i­lies and con­ver­sa­tions with health­care pro­fes­sion­als.

The next real-world pilot has now been launched with the Kaakkuri and Oulun­sa­lo child health clin­ics in the Oulu area. Fam­i­ly recruit­ment is under­way, with the pilot explor­ing whether a struc­tured lon­gi­tu­di­nal record of cry­ing can add val­ue to con­ver­sa­tions between par­ents and pub­lic health nurs­es with­out cre­at­ing sig­nif­i­cant addi­tion­al work for health­care pro­fes­sion­als.

Oodi is being devel­oped as a con­sumer well­be­ing prod­uct rather than a diag­nos­tic tool. The com­pa­ny is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in under­stand­ing where struc­tured infor­ma­tion can sup­port exist­ing con­ver­sa­tions between fam­i­lies and health­care pro­fes­sion­als, and equal­ly impor­tant­ly, where it does not add val­ue.

Lon­don is the next val­i­da­tion step

Ood­io will intro­duce Oodi direct­ly to UK par­ents at The Baby Show Olympia Lon­don, where the com­pa­ny will exhib­it in the event’s New Kids on the Block area for new baby and par­ent­ing prod­ucts.

For Ood­io, the Lon­don launch is not sim­ply about exhibit­ing at a con­sumer show. It is the company’s first oppor­tu­ni­ty to test Oodi direct­ly with UK par­ents, and to begin explor­ing whether there could also be a role for the approach with­in the UK’s mater­nal and child health ecosys­tem.

“We want to find out whether peo­ple imme­di­ate­ly under­stand why Oodi could be use­ful,” Niemelä says. “Do UK par­ents recog­nise the same prob­lem we have seen in Fin­land? Does the prod­uct make sense to them? Will they use it and are they will­ing to pay for it? Those are ques­tions we can only real­ly answer by putting Oodi in front of peo­ple.”

Ood­io also hopes the Lon­don launch will cre­ate con­ver­sa­tions with UK mid­wives, health vis­i­tors, researchers and oth­er child-health pro­fes­sion­als. Rather than try­ing to sell Oodi into health­care at this stage, the com­pa­ny is look­ing for pro­fes­sion­als and organ­i­sa­tions inter­est­ed in help­ing define what a cred­i­ble UK fea­si­bil­i­ty pilot would need to demon­strate.

Find­ing even one suit­able UK part­ner with whom to explore such a pilot would rep­re­sent an impor­tant next step.

Sec­ond time around for Oulu baby-tech founders

Ood­io was found­ed in Oulu in 2026 by Satu Niemelä and Eras­mus van Niek­erk, who pre­vi­ous­ly built the Finnish baby-tech com­pa­ny behind Onni Care. They are return­ing to The Baby Show with a new com­pa­ny, a new prod­uct, and a delib­er­ate­ly dif­fer­ent approach to build­ing it.

Instead of pur­su­ing every oppor­tu­ni­ty that becomes avail­able, the founders are delib­er­ate­ly choos­ing which oppor­tu­ni­ties are worth fol­low­ing and what each one needs to prove before com­mit­ting fur­ther resources. The UK launch is there­fore part of a delib­er­ate­ly staged approach: test, learn, choose the right oppor­tu­ni­ties and use evi­dence to decide what deserves the next com­mit­ment.

The longer-term ambi­tion is to build a lon­gi­tu­di­nal dataset that can sup­port fur­ther research and prod­uct devel­op­ment. Evi­dence from the Finnish pilots and UK con­sumer launch will help Ood­io deter­mine what comes next, includ­ing whether there is a mean­ing­ful path­way towards fur­ther health­care col­lab­o­ra­tion and a future UK fea­si­bil­i­ty pilot.

Con­tact per­son
Eras­mus van Niek­erk
CTO & Co-founder, Ood­io Oy
erasmus@oodi.tech

Source (text and image): Ood­io