How a Nine-Person Danish Startup Toppled Industrial Giants

Founders Emil Hauch Jensen and Odin Kudahl Skovsted launched the company in November 2024 after years of deploying thousands of robots at Mobile Industrial Robots. They realized that the primary barrier to adoption was not the machine itself, but the complex integration required to make it functional. Their solution, the J1600 pallet jack, intentionally caps automation at 95 percent. By requiring a human to handle the initial pallet pickup, the team avoids the prohibitive engineering costs that render full autonomy uneconomic for most facilities.

The J1600, which launched in October 2025, operates in both manual and autonomous modes, retailing at €65,000—roughly half the price of competing models. While Jensen acknowledges that incumbents can replicate this dual-mode functionality, he remains confident that his firm’s design simplicity and ease of use provide a lasting competitive advantage. With distributors already active in eight countries, the startup is now scaling its footprint, treating its recent industry trophy as a validation of a strategy that prioritizes practical utility over total machine autonomy.