Tag Archives: Juuso Nissilä

Valkee Sets New Record, and:
A Match Made in Hell… err, Oulu

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Valkee Oy tekee omavaraisuusasteen miinusennätyksen, ja korvavalon keksijä tekee nyt töitä krapulapilleri-firmalle, joka oli myös kritiikkini kohde täällä.

Valkee Ltd, manufacturer of the HumanCharger earlight devices, has set a new record. Unnoticed by the public, the company reached Finland’s most negative equity ratio and most consecutive years without declaring an overdue bankruptcy.

As told before, there is no rationale behind keeping this enterprise alive, other than the chairman’s reluctance to admit defeat. Timo Ahopelto seems to repress the fact, that  Finland’s penal law lists not declaring a bankruptcy and accumulating additional debt as a crime (chapter 39 no. 1a: Aggravated dishonesty by a debtor, törkeä velallisen epärehellisyys). Welcome to up to 4 years in prison.

Meanwhile, key personnel of the failed firm is “looking for challenges” elsewhere. The following observation nearly knocked me off the chair…

Keep in mind, how this blog was initially only about the Valkee-HumanCharger earlight swindle, until I started writing also about hangover cures. Naturally, many “inventors” and sellers of such BS are found in Finland. My years-long series started with Rohtos Oy from Oulu, and its acetylcysteine scam.

The earlight inventor, Juuso Nissilä, works now for Rohtos.

Did they meet in a hate group? Or a self-help organization for scammer who fell “victim” to my activities? I’m afraid we will never know.

 

HumanCharger: Indiegogo campaign fails, last investor pulls out (update)

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Valkee (alias HumanCharger) has had a single foreign investor since 2013: Merieux Developpement, which financed the earlight company together with Lifeline Ventures and the finnish tax payer. As the co-lead investor, Merieux Dev. had its partner Valerie Calenda on Valkee’s board. Until now.

 

According to the trade register, Calenda has resigned from the board recently. Merieux Equity Partners, which holds the active investments of Merieux Dev., no longer lists Valkee on its portfolio pages. From the french investor’s “regional partners” category disappeared Seppo Mäkinen, former Sitra director, and probably the person who lured Merieux Dev. into this adventure.

 

There is no explanation other than Merieux has backed off and written down its multi-million loss. Now Valkee’s HumanCharger operations are completely controlled by its own folks: the CEO Aki Backman, the inventor Juuso Nissilä, and Timo Ahopelto.

The struggling company had high expectations for their follow-up product to the old LED headset: The HumanCharger Wireless Headset, an ugly and hard-to-wear bluetooth device. It launched an Indiegogo campaign, which looks like a complete desaster already.

 

Featured prominently at reddit/shittykickstarters, people aren’t buying it for half the price.

One backer has left a positive comment, looks like here’s really an impressed user.

 

It’s Timo Ahopelto, the company’s chairman, who felt the urgent need to push his product. Probably it won’t help.

***

UPDATE 7.12.2019:
Valkee’s “HumanCharger” managed to reach 55% of the 30.000€ funding goal on Indiegogo after a month. They added another month and got 40% more, still unable to reach their low aim. They crossed the 100% with the help of two “backers” who sponsored the company with >2000€, not claiming a perk. Probably, these were staffers.

To “reach” the goal made it possible to sell the scam devices still over IGG under the “onDemand” label. The demand is 2-3 devices per week.

These facts are recorded on IGG trackers, like backerkit.com.

Valkee Humancharger shutdown – temporary or final?

earlightswindle exclusive, Finland, huijaus Suomesta, investors, Valkee, , , , , , , , , ,

This blog – as the previous earlightswindle.com – was once reporting exclusively about the multifaceted scamming activities of finnish company Valkee Ltd, maker of the fake “light therapy device” HumanCharger.

Now it seems they are finally phasing out of business. The company is technically bankrupt since March 2017, but now

The finnish trade register says, that in May 2018 the main shareholders LifeLine Ventures, Vera and Merieux forgave the company another 230.000€ convertible loan; i.e. was converted into worthless shares. The same happened to several other such loans during the last two years, rising the amount of burnt money to more than 10 million Euro.

The next months will now be decisive. I am looking forward and will inform as always.

Valkee jakaa tohtoriarvoja, osa 2/3: Antti Flyktman

earlightswindle exclusive, Finland, huijaus Suomesta, pseudoscience, science, Valkee, , , , ,

Poikkeuksellisesti kirjoitan text-only, koska minulta kysyttiin kommentti. Tiedätte, että faktat täällä pitävät paikkansa, toisin kuin kielenkäyttö. Linkit myöhemmin, googlekaa itse tarvittaessa. Olen Tanskassa, tämä tulee puhelimesta.

La 30.6.2018 on seuraava Valkee-väitös tulossa. Tällä kertaa luonnontieteellinen, ei lääketieteen tiedekunnasta kuin viimeksi. Päivä mielestäni ei ole sattuma, viikonloppuna just kun kesäloman ydinaika alkaa. Erittäin likainen temppu yritetään, ja vaikka olen nähnyt paljon Oulun Yliopistolta, en uskonut että sellaista on mahdollista. Toisin kävi. Olin siis väärällä jalalla.

Mikä väitös:

3-artikkelin väitöskirja, josta vain yksi julkaistu tiedejournalissa. J Exp Biol, impact factor ok. Kyseenalainen asetelma valon intensiteetin ja kontrolliryhmän kannalta, mutta olkoon. Tavallista kamaa siis. Jos OY:lta saa tohtoriarvon yhdestä hiirikokeesta, ei ole minun ongelma.

Toinen artikkeli on huijauslehdessä julkaistu, J Neurol Res. OYn sännöt kieltävät predatory publication väitöskirjassa. Kansainvälisesti tällaista ei pidetä edes akateemisena toimintana. Toisaalta tällaista nähtiin jo muissa korvavalo-väitöksissä.

Kolmas juttu on manuscript-tilassa.

Väitösfarssin osapuolet:

Ohjaajana/kustoksena toimii “korvavalon isoisä” Seppo Saarela, joka vuosia auttanut Valkeeta markkinoinnissa. Muistetaan vielä tempustaan Hesarissa, jossa hän firman henkilöstöön kuuluvan Jari Karhun kanssa puolustanut korvavaloa vastauksena tiedetoimittajan kolumnille. Oulun yliopisto joutui tutkimaan, onko Saarela rikkonut intressiristiriita-sääntöjä (mikä oli hölmö, koska HS on siviililehti, eikä OY pystynyt tekemään mitään Karhun tapauksessa).

Karhu on väitöstilaisuuden vastaväittäjä. Kuulostaa uskomattomalta, mutta OY oikeasti ottaa Valkeen miehen valkeeväitöksen “vasta”(!)väittäjänä. Karhu pääsi firman palkkalistalle 2013, kun suursijoitus mahdollisti rekrytöintiä. LinkedIn-profiilinsa mukaan hän on yhä firman neuvonantajana nyt. Kun Valkee ahdingossaan myöhemmin antoi kenkää “tiede”väelle, Karhu jäi “tiedetiimin johtajana”, entisellä nettisivuilla luki.

Tiedotteessa henkilö kutsutaan “Professori Jari Karhu, Suomen Terveystalo Oy”. Tämä tuskin on akateeminen laitos. Karhu on siellä ylempi johtaja. Mies oli joskus neurofysiologian professori Kuopiossa, kunnes virka loppui. Mistä tämä titteli siis?

Karhu ei ole asian tuntija. Hän ei ole julkaistanut yhtä samansuuntaista juttua, ei vuorokausirytmistä, valosta, hiirten aivoproteiineista. Ainoa “pätevyyden näyttö” on, että on Valkeen asialla. Eli mikä pitäisi olla poissulkusyy, on Oulussa hyväksynnän peruste.

Väittelijä itse kirjoittaa “kiitokset”-osuudessa suhteestaan Valkeeseen. Lyhyesti mikä täällä tapahtuu: Valkeen tutkija saa tohtoriarvon korvavaloprofessorilta, ja vastaväittäjäkin on Valkeelta. Ei mitään voi siis mennä pieleen. Jopa selkeä tieteellinen väärinkäyttö, joka mualla johtuisi hylkämiseen, ei se mitään, hyväksytään. Varma nakki, kiitos Oulun Yliopistolle tästä!

Tämä väitös oli ym. mielessäni, kun kirjoitin Valkeen Heidi Jurvelinin väitöstilaisuuden yhteydessä, että Oulussa on pahempiakin. Tähän verrattuna Maaliskuun kohuväitös on huippulaatua.

Ettei tule väärinkäsityksiä, en ole katkera tai vihainen, päinvastoin. Viimeinen Valkee-väitös oli laajasti esillä netissä ja mediassa. Yleisö saattaa vihdoin ymmärtää, mikä skandaalin tutkijat jo pitkään tiedämme – että kyseessä on tietoinen ja tahallinen toiminta yliopiston puolelta. Ei ole akateeminen vapaus joka joskus synnyttää outoja tuloksia. Ei ollut vahinko. Akateemisen järjestelmän systemaatinen hyväksi- ja väärinkäyttö.

Only in Oulu?

 

Ps. Lukekaa readers’ comments alla.

New HumanCharger study, old trick: Predatory publication

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Here we go again: The finnish earlight maker Valkee Ltd has published its next study of their HumanCharger device. This time, it’s about neurotransmitters and proteins in “transcranially illuminated” mouse brain.

 

The article is published in the “open access” Journal of Neurology Research. The journal is published by Elmer Press, a canadian predatory Publisher.

jnrnew6

There are several Valkee/HumanCharger papers in questionable journals, so this is no surprise. Again, no real peer-reviewed publication wanted the finnish pseudoscience in its pages.

elmeri-funding

The scam company (here called “Valkee Inc.”) is listed as study sponsor, and most of the authors are related to Valkee. Interestingly, professor Timonen is not listed as a shareholder – that may have been “forgotten” to declare, or he really sold his stake.

The paper itself is just another junk article in a fake journal, but there are implications for the institute of professor Seppo Saarela at the University of Oulu, which oversaw this “research”. University funding is partially based on scientific publications, and a predatory article actually means a financial loss for the department.

A junk paper is counted with -90% (article worth x 0,1) according to present university law. Classification is done by the Publication Forum maintained by Finland’s learned societies. At the moment, the “Journal of Neurology Research” has not been classified officially by the institution. That’s possibly a reason why Valkee’s researchers did submit the paper to Elmer Press.

The main reason,  however, is that naive customers and investors can be fooled with another article. The paper cannot be found via standard database searches like PubMed/MedLine, so the results are unavailable and lost for the scientific community.

That may be a problem also for its main author, which got a 24.000€ grant (PDF p.37) from the Alfred Kordelin Foundation to produce a thesis on “Earlight effects on light-sensitive proteins in rodents’ brains”.

flyktman-vedatys

Valkee Ltd collapses as predicted: All share capital lost

earlightswindle exclusive, Finland, investors, Valkee, valkeeleaks, , , , , , , ,

UPDATE: My original story has reached more than 500.000 800.000 readers.
See ILTALEHTI | KAUPPALEHTI | TEKNIIKKA&TALOUS | ILTA-SANOMAT etc.pp.

The finnish trade register has just announced, that the HumanCharger manufacturer Valkee Ltd has lost all of its share capital. That means, that all of the company’s ressources are depleted, and new capital is not in sight – not even theoretically.

valkee-bankrupt

In other countries, the firm would have to file for immediate insolvency or bankruptcy, which is regulated in the same chapter of finnish corporate law.  In Finland, however, business could go on for a while – under extreme conditions, as purchases must all be paid in advance, and credits are stroke off. All business partners are now informed officially, that Valkee cannot fulfil upcoming liabilities.

Because of the consequences, such a notification is usually done in the least possible moment. It may be driven by the fact, that management and owners can be held liable personally from now on, if they don’t declare the final state publicly.

If anyone has claims against Valkee Ltd, now is the time to demand.

Personally I think, that the company will exist on paper for a few months, until its chairman Timo Ahopelto resigns from the board of TEKES, Finland’s tax-financed innovation funding agency. TEKES has shot in more than 100.000€ last year into Valkee, despite the obviously desperate state of the company, which was strictly documented in the 2016 balance.

Probably it’s the political dimension of the case. The snail media will report more soon. The source is earlightswindle.com – just in case they “forget” it again. /-Ed.

Valkee ist pleite

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Wie die finnische Registerbehörde PRH gestern mitteilte, hat der Ohrleuchtenhersteller Valkee Oy aus Oulu am vergangenen Donnerstag den Verlust des gesamten Stammkapitals gemeldet.

valkee-bankrupt

Während nach deutschem Recht die Gesellschafter zum sofortigen Insolvenzantrag verpflichtet wären, kann die Firma in Finnland unter Umständen fortgesetzt werden. Wegen der Auswirkungen auf die Geschäftstätigkeit (Einkäufe nur noch gegen Vorkasse, Kündigung von Kreditlinien, usw.) ist aber eine Insolvenz mit Gläubigerschutz und Sanierungsversuch oder ein direkter Konkurs wahrscheinlicher. [s. Abschnitt 20, §§23-25 des finnischen Kapitalgesellschaftsgesetzes: Stammkapitalverlust, Insolvenz und Konkurs]

Die Meldung über den Stammkapitalsverlust erfolgt in der Regel zum allerletzten rechtlich möglichen Zeitpunkt. Unterbleibt die Anzeige, oder erfolgt sie zu spät, können Geschäftsführung und Gesellschafter im Falle des Konkurses in Anspruch genommen werden. Hiermit zeigen demnach die Verantwortlichen bei Valkee an, dass sämtliche finanziellen Möglichkeiten ausgeschöpft sind, und sie nicht persönlich haften wollen.

Da das Schicksal von Valkee in Finnland wegen der Verwicklung der Regierung politische Bedeutung hat, könnte die Skandalfirma auf dem Papier noch fortbestehen – etwa bis zum Sommer 2017, wenn der Firmenchef Timo Ahopelto vom Leitungsgremium der Innovationsförderungsbehörde TEKES zurücktritt. TEKES hat im letzten Jahr noch über 100.000 € in Valkee nachgeschossen, obwohl die Geschäftsführung öffentlich zugegeben hat, dass die Ohrleuchtengeräte in Finnland unverkäuflich sind und der sinkende Auslandsumsatz maximal 1/4 der Kosten deckt.

Wenn Sie noch Ansprüche an die Firma Valkee haben, dann ist jetzt der Zeitpunkt, sie anzumelden. Das Zeitfenster kann sich bald schließen.

How to handle an unwanted blogger – the Valkee solution

earlightswindle exclusive, investors, Valkee, valkeeleaks, , , , , , ,

Imagine the following: You have a company selling some unproven wonder treatment to naïve customers. You get maximum-level political support – even from the President of the Republic and the PM. You’re getting multi-million public and private funding enabling you to produce “research” to bolster your marketing.

But the target population still doesn’t believe you. An ugly makeshift website with an unfriendly blog draws as much attention as your glossy campaign. Although it is maintained anonymously, it has higher credibility. The facts presented there are a threat to your business, you want to get rid of that. What shall you do?

Here is, what Valkee Ltd did.

 

1. Send a threatening letter

in which you demand to shut down the website.

cease-and-desist letter by Valkee's CEO Somerto

 

If unsuccessful,

2. Let your lawyers send a threatening letter.

cease-and-desist by Borenius law firm

Luckily, you have Borenius, a leading law firm, at hand – at the expense of others.

 

If unsuccessful, start some

3. Text message stalking

somerto-sms1

Send the messages preferably in the morning (before 7:30 a.m.) or at night (after 8:00 p.m.). You may achieve a good shock-and-awe effect when the target is with the family, not expecting anything bad.

somerto-sms2

 

If unsuccessful, make a

4. Denunciation to the police.

The outcome may be disappointing (detailed description of the case here), because the website/blog does nothing illegal. The presented facts are correct, as you know.

 

Anyway, if unsuccessful, try a

5. Second complaint to the police

in which you decry the activities of that blog as a vital threat to your business. Urge the police to do anything soon. At least, it will keep the blogger busy and under pressure.

lawsuit2-4[1]

 

If all those methods are unsuccessful,

6. Hire a private investigator.

This may be outsourced to some of your pals. Their growing concerns about the failing investment could make them try a whole bunch of unconventional measures. You must convince them, that all negative publicity is caused by that blogger and his friends, not by your foul claims.

valkee-amateur-spies

Security expert Dave may find out interesting things about one’s personal life (cut out from the JPG above). Keep it for later use. But next time avoid leaking the memos, because of your sheer incompetence with web techniques.

  • Guessing game: Who hired David as a private eye?
    • Hint 1 (symbolic picture):
      (symbolic picture only)
    • Hint 2: it begins with M.

 

If still unsuccessful,

7. Contact the blogger’s employer.

This is, of course, a do-not for a civilized person. Use only if despair strikes. You may try to find out more details about your target. Or simply ask random things, to make clear you’re despicable enough to actually play that card.

Be aware, that the HR department may be used already to 3C-requests (criminals, crooks, and crackpots) due to the nature of that institution. Your questions may be redirected instead and cause further damage.

update: Pekka Somerto contacted my employer via phone and from a DNA welho.com e-mail (probably he changed it now to Elisa.fi). I received a HR call at home on my day off, and had to explain. An uncomfortable situation, as you may understand./-Ed.

 

If all is unsuccessful,

8. Leave the company

after all you’ve done.

thelastoneswitchesoffthelight

Your pals/investors could help with parachuting you into a leading position elsewhere – even with comparable pay checks.

valkeelisa

Then resume where you stopped: Selling flimflam devices. Enjoy life!

***

Surprise: Elisa Oyj sells Valkee-succeeding Oura crap

earlightswindle exclusive, investors, pseudoscience, Valkee, , , , ,

Some twists in the Valkee saga still may surprise me. That one is hard to comment:

Oura-Valkee-Somerto-Elisa

Oura-Valkee-Somerto-Elisa

[ background 1 ] [ background 2 ] [ background 3 ]

The Oura ring is another gadget linked to unfounded claims, misleading advertising, and Valkee. Elisa Oyj‘s new Business Development Director is the former CEO of Valkee, and multiple Valkee employees now appear at Oura, which original name is JouZen Oy. Valkee’s co-founder is listed among the inventors of Oura’s founding patents. Among JouZen/Oura leaders is Petteri Lahtela, from Valkee’s Japan operations.

A so-called butt-on-bucket constellation, with helping hands by good old boys.

The 3rd Relaunch of the Valkee Scam: “SummerLight”!

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With worldwide sales nearing zero, the finnish earlight maker Valkee Ltd undertakes the next (and probably last) “relaunch” of its 10 year-old scam. The product is now called SummerLight. The accompanying website summerlight.com is a shady copy of the previous humancharger.com fraud.

valkee-summerlight-therapy-deviceNo further comment needed.

Update: Valkee’s scam sites won’t open w/ earlightswindle.com referrers. They also block me on Twitter. OMG. OMG!!1! – I had to fix the links.