ELLIPTIC LABORATORIES ASA

Their core work

Elliptic Laboratories develops proprietary ultrasound sensing technology that replaces physical hardware sensors with software-defined virtual sensors in smartphones and smart devices. Their flagship technologies — INNER MAGIC and INNER REFLECTION — use a device's existing speaker and microphone to perform proximity detection, presence sensing, and gesture recognition without dedicated sensor chips. The company commercializes this as a B2B technology licensed to device manufacturers, eliminating hardware components and reducing device cost and complexity. Their SME Instrument Phase 2 grant confirms EU evaluators judged the technology both technically sound and commercially market-ready.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

With only two projects and no keyword metadata, direct keyword-shift analysis is not possible. What the project sequence does reveal is a clear maturation arc: in 2017 they entered EU research as a participant in SILENSE, a large ECSEL consortium focused on foundational sensor research, suggesting they were building credibility and testing their technology in an industrial research context. By 2019 they had confidence and external validation sufficient to coordinate their own SME-2 scale-up project, explicitly targeting commercialization of their named product lines. The trajectory is from research contributor to independent technology vendor in under three years.

Elliptic Laboratories is on a clear path from research participation toward independent product commercialization, making them a more attractive licensing or co-development partner than a traditional academic or research-stage entity.

How they like to work

They have operated in both modes: as a specialist participant inside a very large ECSEL consortium (SILENSE, 33 partners across 9 countries) and as the sole coordinator of their own scale-up grant. This combination is unusual for an SME and suggests they are comfortable navigating complex industrial consortia while also capable of driving their own agenda when the technology is ready. Future partners should expect them to be a focused, technically assertive contributor rather than a passive participant.

Their consortium footprint — 33 unique partners across 9 countries — comes primarily from the SILENSE ECSEL project, which typically involves major European semiconductor firms, research institutes, and OEMs. For a two-project SME this is a substantial European industrial network.

What sets them apart

Elliptic Laboratories occupies a narrow but commercially valuable niche: software that replaces hardware sensors, a proposition with direct cost and supply-chain appeal to device manufacturers. Very few European SMEs operate at this intersection of ultrasound physics, embedded software, and consumer electronics OEM licensing. Their SME-2 grant (acceptance rate typically under 5%) is an independent quality signal that peers in the field rarely hold.

Highlights from their portfolio

• IMIR-UP
  Coordinator role in a €2.16M SME Instrument Phase 2 scale-up grant — the EU's most competitive commercialization instrument — for their own named product lines, signaling genuine market-ready technology.
• SILENSE
  Participation in a large ECSEL-RIA consortium (33 partners, 9 countries) on ultra-low energy sound interfaces, embedding a small Norwegian SME in Europe's core semiconductor and electronics research network.