Arild Stapnes Johnsen
CEO and founder
40+ years of experience in IT, from development to management. Previously founded Norsk Telemedisin AS, the company behind VideoForAlle. Inventor of FairGateway®.
Investors
SMS is the most universal digital channel there is – yet for most organisations it only works one way. Fair Teknologi turns an organisation's own number into a two-way, documented workflow. We are now raising capital.
At a glance
- Technology with a granted patent
- Paying customers since 2024
- 100% renewal, no customer has left
- No cost per message
Why now
Norway's new Archives Act came into force on 1 January 2026.1 The rules are technology-neutral: records must be managed and preserved regardless of technology and format, and must be complete, authentic and understandable over time. For municipalities and organisations that use SMS in case handling and services, this means the SMS dialogue must also be documented. Very few can do that today.
Isn't SMS on its way out?
How many unread texts do you have from people you know?
For most people, the answer is zero. The unread ones are adverts and automated messages.2 Messages from people we know get read – and that is the kind of dialogue SeMSe is about.
No. SMS is the only messaging channel that works on every mobile phone, with no app, account or login. Organisations still use it for alerts, reminders and one-time codes because it reaches everyone, and in several large European countries its use is still growing.3 Apps, email addresses and chat services come and go, but a phone number stays with us through much of our lives. When contact is only possible through an app, chat or email, older people and those with only a simple mobile phone are shut out. That is digital exclusion, which the public sector in particular is keen to avoid. At the same time, more and more people deliberately choose a simple phone to reduce their screen time, and mobile operators now actively market such phones. It makes SMS more relevant, not less.
SMS in numbers
- United Kingdom: 20 billion SMS from organisations in 2023–243
- France: 14.2 billion in 2024, up 6%3
- Spain: 6.87 billion in 2024, up 17%3
These are mainly automated messages, and many of them cannot be answered. Organisations use SMS more than ever, but rarely as dialogue. That is the gap SeMSe fills.
The solution
SeMSe is the workspace where the organisation receives, routes, answers and documents SMS and MMS. FairGateway® is the patented bridge at the customer's site, using the customer's own SIM card and number. Residents and customers can start the dialogue themselves, with no app and no login.
Why we win
Patented architecture
FairGateway® holds a granted Norwegian patent. It protects the architecture itself, not an algorithm.
No cost per message
Traffic runs on the customer's own mobile subscription. Competitors charge per message because their business model is built that way.
The customer owns the equipment
The phone and SIM card belong to the customer, so we carry no inventory or warranty obligations for hardware.
Operator-independent
The solution is in operation with customers on four Norwegian mobile operators, and no operator sits in our revenue stream.
One version for everyone
There is only one version of SeMSe: the same code for every customer, every industry and every country. What sets customers apart is their configuration, not custom builds. When a customer needs something new, such as a connection to another system, we build it so that every customer can use it. That keeps maintenance low, every customer gets improvements at the same time, and we can grow without our costs growing at the same pace.
We call it Common SeMSe.
Proven in operation
FairGateway® has been in continuous operation with paying customers since 2024, without interruptions and without any customer leaving. SeMSe was not invented first and sold afterwards: it came from two concrete customer requests. One customer wanted to receive SMS from residents, another needed shared handling and a neutral number to reply from. Fair Teknologi is a certified partner of Phonero (opens in a new tab) and is listed on their on-call and emergency preparedness page. Our access to the Telia Smart Connect API was confirmed in July 2026.
Business model
A fixed subscription per gateway and per active user. The customer owns the phone, and messages go through the customer's own mobile subscription. That is why our costs do not rise as volume grows – and why we don't need to charge per message. The solution works wherever the customer's mobile subscription works, with no geographical limits.
The market
Dentists, car workshops, medical practices, municipalities, energy companies and service organisations already use SMS every day, but rarely as real dialogue. We are starting in Norway, with the Nordics and Europe as the next step.
The team
Surendra Nadkarni
CTO and co-founder
17+ years of experience with embedded software. Inventor of FairGateway®.
Recognised innovation
CES Innovation Awards Honoree 2015, Las Vegas, and Rogaland County Council's innovation award 2015 – both for VideoForAlle. Both founders are inventors with registered patents.
How to proceed
Send a request
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We send an NDA
We get in touch and send a non-disclosure agreement.
Meet the founders
You receive the pitch deck, financial model and a meeting with us.
Sources
- Lovdata: “Lov om dokumentasjon og arkiv (arkivlova)” (Norwegian) (opens in a new tab)
- Mobilesquared, Nick Lane: “SMS engagement rates dropping but still smash performance of other channels” (opens in a new tab)
- Mobile Ecosystem Forum, 1 August 2025: “A2P SMS Traffic Surges in Spain Amid Broader European Divergence” (figures from national regulators) (opens in a new tab)