RealTyme: The Venture Leader Mobile making a positive impact with its communication platform

20.02.2023 07:00, Morgane Ghilardi

"We just want people to communicate with peace of mind," says Onur Özen, CEO of RealTyme. The startup helps organizations and institutions communicate in a secure, sovereign, and sustainable way with an all-in-one collaboration platform. Onur and the other members of the Swiss National Mobile Team 2023 will head to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of February.

Name: Onur Özen, Ph.D.
Location: Geneva, Switzerland 
Nationality: Turkish 
Graduated from: EPFL, IC, Doctoral Program, 2012
Job title: CEO 
Number of employees: 35 
Money raised: USD 5.1 million
First touchpoint with Venturelab: Swisscom StartUp Challenge, 2021 
  
How did you come up with the idea for your startup?
We created RealTyme to help anyone on Earth connect without any negative impact of technology. Existing solutions, while being powerful and widely adapted,  impact people, organizations, nations, as well as the planet in a negative way. 

Privacy, compliance, and security are just some of the aspects to be considered. However, they are not the only ones: the climate impact of these technologies cannot be ignored. Indeed, the ICT sector is one of the fastest-growing producers of CO2 emissions and communication systems take a significant portion. 

Another aspect to consider is the detrimental effect on digital well-being, such as addiction, distraction (especially due to social media), or burnout (due to non-stop notifications). 

We just wanted to provide a communication solution that cares about these issues by providing a more humane communication platform for everyone. Currently, we serve organizations but our ambition is to make RealTyme available for anyone. We just want people to communicate with peace of mind. 

What do you expect from the Venture Leaders roadshow, and how do you think it help you achieve your vision?
We are at the stage of scaling and spreading the word. So, our main aim at the show is visibility and networking, and relationship building for our next round of fundraising (series A). Obviously, we will also be exploring business development opportunities, especially with mobile operators and other service providers concerning our sovereign communication solution services that we can build on country levels. 
 

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Whom does your product or solution help, and how?
At the moment, we are focused on the B2G (government, semi-government, public sector, defense) and B2B (enterprises in Oil & Gas, Trading, Pharma, Financial sector, Critical infrastructure) markets.

Our use cases include secure communication for VIPs (e.g., WhatsApp replacement); nationwide communication services for the public sector; compliant and sovereign communication for hybrid teams (e.g., Skype for Business alternative); and smart workspace for field workers (for sensitive industries like defense, oils & gas, as well as critical infrastructure).

Our customer footprint to date is in the EMEA region and predominantly consists of governments, public-sector institutions, and enterprises in regulated industries. We aim to grow quickly in the EMEA by replicating our current success and to enter new geographies providing not only private but also public cloud-based communication solutions 

What are you most excited about at work right now?
Our vision is that RealTyme will connect people all over the world while mitigating the negative potential impact of technology, so the positive impact that we aim to bring to the world and people is what excited me most about our work.
 
How did you go about building your team?
We have a quite diverse and distributed team: the foundational core of the team (about ten people) is in Switzerland. Additional team members are located across Europe, Turkey, and GCC.

Onur and the RealTyme team in Geneva

What are your company's and team's key achievements to date?

• We sorted product market fit and released a product that is already commercialized
• We grew the team and commercial footprint internationally in Europe, Middle East, and Africa 
• We secured 20+ independent deployments with significant growth potential 
• We raised more than 5 million USD and increased sales exponentially since 2020
• We defined climate targets and actions to make RealTyme the most environmentally friendly secure collaboration solution 

How did you come up with the name of your startup?
RealTyme refers to “real-time” communication. The name emphasizes our focus on communication that is happening in the now, in some ephemeral and natural way. It refers to the fact that there is no long-term memory, data hold, or recording: only simple and mindful communication. 

Is there a key principle or value that guides you as you build your company?
We are fundamentally an impact-driven company with ethical, responsible, and humane foundations that are rooted in our company’s DNA, as well as in our product. We want to build products that can be used with peace of mind and with no negative impact on people, organizations, nations, or the planet. We aim to create a product mindset that does not trick people, that does not create hidden backdoors for monetization and that does not produce addictive distractions. What we want to offer are products for good that are empowering people and their well-being. 

What is the most rewarding aspect of being a founder?
Contributing to the solutions of real-world problems such as cyber risks and climate change and seeing how people benefit from it.

What did you want to do with your life at age 12? 
I wanted to be a football player! I was good at it and I always felt blessed and lucky when I played football. I knew I could become one but I was also good at school and in my academic life in general. Kids usually need to make choices about their path at that age, but I didn't like the idea of having to choose either path; so I was trying to find a way to become an academic and a professional footballer at the same time. Well, that didn't work out. But it's okay! I still play football, just not professionally, which is still quite fun.

What is one thing everyone should try at least once?
Cold water swimming, e.g., in a Swiss lake in winter. Just a few minutes would do. The way it energizes your body and makes you feel invincible should be experienced by everyone at least once in their lives.



RealTyme's all-in-one platform offers security and control, but not at the expense of the environment


The Venture Leaders program supports startups in their global growth by taking top entrepreneurs on investor roadshows in sector-relevant tech hubs. Venture Leaders Mobile is organized by Venturelab with the support of Huawei, Swisscom, and VISCHER.

Learn more about the startup: