founder says at Davos

Aker ASA

17/01/2024 10:52

(Adds quotes, detail, background in paragraphs 3-6)
       DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Norwegian
industrial software firm Cognite expects to become cash-flow
positive in 2024 and could list its shares in New York in the
coming years, possibly as early as 2025, its co-founder and
executive John Markus Lervik told Reuters on Wednesday.
    The company sells software that aggregates and analyses vast
volumes of industrial data, such as machine sensors, to increase
efficiency and safety. Last year, it launched its own generative
artificial intelligence (AI) tool to boost productivity.
    "We will be cash flow positive in 2024... Our objective from
the beginning was to build the world's leading industrial
software company and to list it in the United States," Lervik
said in an interview during the World Economic Forum (WEF)
annual meeting in Davos.
        The timing of the listing depended both on Cognite's
readiness and on the financial markets, but it could happen "in
the next few years", possibly in 2025, he added. 
  
        The company, majority owned by Aker ASA  AKER.OL , an
Oslo-listed investment firm controlled by Norwegian billionaire
Kjell Inge Roekke, has attracted investments from Accel, TCV and
Saudi Aramco  2222.SE  since its 2016 inception.
  
        In 2022, Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil firm,
took a 7.4% stake in Cognite via its subsidiary Aramco Overseas
Company B.V., valuing the Norwegian company at about $1.6
billion.
  
        (Join the Reuters Global Markets Forum (GMF), a chat
room hosted on LSEG Messenger, for live interviews: https://lseg.group/3TN7SHH)

 (Reporting by Divya Chowdhury in Davos and Savio Shetty in
Mumbai, writing by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)
 ((nerijus.adomaitis@thomsonreuters.com; +47 9027 6699; Reuters
Messaging: nerijus.adomaitis.thomsonreuters@reuters.net))