About Oodi
Built to support parents,
not replace them.
The first months with a baby can be wonderful, exhausting, confusing and sometimes all three at once. Oodi began with a simple idea: technology can help parents keep track of what they’re experiencing without trying to tell them how to parent. We’re building Oodi to make it easier to keep track of a baby’s crying over time and to give parents something clear to look back on when they want to understand what has been happening.
You’re still the parent. Oodi is simply there to support you.
How we think about technology
We don’t believe parenting needs more technology for the sake of technology. The best technology should quietly make something difficult a little easier. That thinking guides how we’re building Oodi:
Support, don't replace.
Parents know their babies. Oodi is there to help them keep track, not take over their judgement.
Inform, don't alarm.
Crying is part of having a baby. Oodi shouldn't turn normal parenting into something that feels clinical or frightening.
Show, don't diagnose.
Oodi helps parents see their own observations more clearly. It doesn't try to tell them why their baby is crying.
Collect only what we need.
Information about families and babies deserves to be treated carefully.
Build with people, not just for them.
We develop Oodi by listening to parents and healthcare professionals, testing our assumptions and learning from real use.
Built from experience
Oodi is being developed in Oulu, Finland, by a team with experience in technology, product development, user experience, infant products and digital health.
But Oodi isn’t our first baby-tech product.
Before Oodi, we co-founded OnniCare, developing connected infant technology combining hardware and software.
Our work received international recognition, including a Gold A’ Design Award, and gave us first-hand experience of developing technology for families and taking an infant product towards international markets.
It also taught us something important. It’s very easy to build more. More technology. More features. More complexity.
It’s much harder to work out what people genuinely need. With Oodi, we’re taking a deliberately focused approach: start with a real problem, build the smallest useful solution, put it in people’s hands and learn before adding complexity.
Oodi has to earn the right to grow.
Meet the founders
Satu Niemelä
Co-founder & COO
Satu brings more than two decades of experience in international product, operations and innovation work, including global user experience, content and localisation work at Nokia.
She has also worked extensively with startup development, public funding and international partnerships, and previously co-founded OnniCare.
At Oodi, Satu leads operations, partnerships and commercial development, while helping ensure that what we build remains grounded in the needs of parents and the people who support them.
Erasmus van Niekerk
Co-founder & CTO
Erasmus is a product and technology entrepreneur with experience across software, hardware and digital health.
He has previously built technology businesses and co-founded OnniCare, where he led product development across hardware, software and connected services. He has also worked in product and technology roles within medical technology and regulated environments.
At Oodi, Erasmus leads product and technology development, with a focus on practical validation, usability and keeping the technology as simple as the problem allows.
Built with parents and professionals
We don’t want to build Oodi based only on what we think parents need. Our development has involved conversations with parents and healthcare professionals in Finland, including neonatologists, public health nurses and nursing educators.
We’ve also carried out parent research, prototype testing and early pilot activities to challenge our assumptions before making bigger decisions about the product.
We don’t publish detailed pilot results or product-development findings while Oodi is still being developed. Those learnings are helping us decide what to build, what not to build and what needs further testing.
What we can say is that the process has reinforced one principle that matters enormously to us:
Oodi should support parents, not try to replace their judgement.
As we prepare for our UK launch, we’ll continue learning from both families and professionals.
Privacy and responsible technology
Families shouldn’t have to trade away their privacy to get useful support.
Oodi is being built around a few straightforward principles:
Collect only what is needed.
Give users clear control over their information.
Explain what we're doing in language people can understand.
Never sell parents' or babies' personal data to third parties.
Don't introduce monitoring simply because the technology makes it possible.
Use technology to support human judgement, not replace it.
Oodi is a wellbeing tool. It does not diagnose or treat medical conditions, replace professional medical judgement or provide emergency medical advice.
Where we're going next
Our first founding users will begin using Oodi in September 2026, ahead of our wider UK launch in October.
We’re looking for parents who want to be among the first to use Oodi and help us make it better.
We’re also interested in hearing from UK healthcare professionals who work with families during early infancy and would like to learn more about our pilot activities.
