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- [00:00]
Eugene Timiewski
Foreign.
- [00:12]
Tom Edwards
Hello and welcome to the Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio. The show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. Coming up on today's program, we're exploring two topics that dominated the agenda at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Greenland, and European defence. First, we'll head to Nuuk to meet the founder of an adventure travel company offering guided tours in the Arctic wilderness and trying to make the most of the unusual conversations currently focused on his island.
- [00:43]
Casper Frank Muller
When a guy like Donald Trump, one of the most powerful people on Earth, start talking about a country that has barely been mentioned in the world history, it does something. Of course, Greenland was kind of put on the world map.
- [00:53]
Tom Edwards
And later we'll take a dive into the cold waters of the Baltic Sea for a chat with the CEO of a company behind a NATO backed underwater drone.
- [01:01]
Eugene Timiewski
We are in a race. We are in a weapons race. So we must not stop.
- [01:06]
Tom Edwards
This is the Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards, You're listening to the Entrepreneurs now. It's fair to say that Greenlanders would on the whole have been happier if US President Donald Trump had never heard of their island and happier still if, if he'd never mentioned it. However, becoming the subject of obsession by Earth's most powerful and influential individual does at least attract attention, including from people who might fancy visiting one day. One company operating in Greenland's still underdeveloped tourism space is Raw Arctic, based in Greenland's tiny capital Nook. Our Andrew Muller visited Raw Arctic while he was in Nook for Monocle and spoke to the CEO and co founder, Casper Frank Muller.
- [01:55]
Casper Frank Muller
Approximate I would say three and a half years ago, Isaac, one of the co founders sitting in there, we got the idea to establish this company called Raw Arctic. And I think for us it was about merging our hobby with our profession, me and myself. I have a master degree in innovation and entrepreneurship and teaches business at the university. And Isaac is an educated Arctic adventure guide. So he knows his way around this nature. So we kind of gathered together and thought, okay, let's, let's do something different. Let's spend our lives on something that we really love. And that's where we brought Rasmus in. He's the other co founder, he's a captain on some of our boats and he has a lot of experience with business as well. So we were kind of set up for success, let me say it that way. So we ended up launching the company around one and a half year ago, almost two years ago now. And it was again with the idea of working with Boat operations, working with fly fishing, because that's. That's one of my true passions. I really love fly fishing. It's a bit of a family thing that I do with my siblings. So it started out quite small and then it scaled into being not not only operating in Nuuk, but doing travel packages and tours all over Greenland.
- [03:04]
Andrew Muller
So what's different about what Roar Arctic is doing? Where did you see a gap in the market that other tour operators and other tourism businesses in Greenland weren't operating?
- [03:14]
Casper Frank Muller
I think there is quite a big competition in the market when it comes to tourism, because I think, of course you have. The fisheries is like a really a pillar of the economy. Then you have, of course, rare earth minerals, minerals in general. And then you have tourism. And this is the kind of the newest establishment of the Greenlandic economy. And that's where we saw an opportunity. But again, there is a really tough competition in the market. But I usually say it's really difficult to buy something that you can't see. So that's exactly what we tried to develop and enhance even further. And that was to sell Greenland. And how do you sell it is by being present. It's by taking these interviews, getting us publicly known. It's about being effective on social media. It's about having the proper agents and just being an outspoken person, travel around and using your contacts. And I think that was kind of our go to market strategy to really just get it out there. And we ran a campaign in National Geographic last year that said, not for sale, open for exploring. So we kind of use this entire media momentum to our advantage.
- [04:14]
Andrew Muller
Well, I mean, that kind of preempts a question I wanted to ask, which was, have you noticed an uptick in attention over the last year or so, not just from journalists such as ourselves, but from people who all of a sudden are interested in coming to Greenland, who may never have thought about going to Greenland before.
- [04:31]
Casper Frank Muller
Again, when. When a guy like Donald Trump, one of the most powerful people on earth, start talking about a country that has barely been mentioned in. In the world history. It does last year, when the first people really started to arrive. Not people, but mainly journalists. Greenlake was kind of put on the world map and that was a huge opportunity for me, especially after Raw Arctic, because we went out and did exactly what we do right now, talking to journalists. So we really got Raw Arctic out there. And it was a huge upside because then people wrote to us, hey, I read about you in an article. I saw you in the television. And they're like, I want to Come visit your country. And that was just brilliant. It had a huge upside and it just made us scale way faster because we were the first contact point. We were not that reliant on external agents.
- [05:16]
Andrew Muller
But did you notice those inquiries actually leading to an uptick in bookings? Did those people who made those inquiries, and I'm not talking about journalists, I'm talking about actual honest to goodness tourists, did they all actually turn up?
- [05:28]
Casper Frank Muller
Yes, they did. Again, Greenland became a new tourist destination. It's trendy again. Who doesn't want to go to Greenland before it's taken over by the us? That's at least the statement that people are stating. So it's just interests. So again, now there are a lot of people. But my concerns are though, and that's also one of the things that we see right now is that like, and we're kind of reaching this, like it's a bit of a double edged sword because there's so much media momentum, there's so much being talked about Greenland and people want to go to Greenland. But because of what we saw in Venezuela, it just kind of puts a bit more power behind the words of Trump. So the concerns right now are a little bit too much. So people decide to kind of pause their bookings.
- [06:13]
Andrew Muller
People are waiting to see what happens.
- [06:14]
Casper Frank Muller
Yes. So people saying, yeah, we have like 20 people on the waiting list and they're like, yeah, we want to book, but it's a bit too, it's not safe enough right now. So they kind of just want to wait a bit out, wait a few weeks to hope things are going to settle.
- [06:28]
Andrew Muller
Your sense though, that that prospect of the United States actually acting does hang over people on Greenland. Is it something that Greenlanders are generally actually quite worried about?
- [06:39]
Casper Frank Muller
Yes, of course. Again, in the aftermath of what happened in Venezuela, it seems way more likely that it's going to happen. And of course, when we sit on like, let's say critical rare earth mills, we sit on possible shipping routes opening up with the rapid escalation of climate change. Again, we are a geopolitical position that means a lot and we definitely feel that. So we understand why Trump wants Greenland. But again, is it going to happen? That's where I have my doubts. Again, wars in between, NATO allies, disturbance of the world autumn. I have my doubts that it will happen. But our guests are still a bit too hesitant to book because they're not sure yet and neither are we. How could we know? Of course, we're all concerned. We're worried about the future because you're Always concerned about something you can't predict.
- [07:30]
Andrew Muller
Let's talk a bit about what those tourists who are not put off might experience when they get here and give you a chance at this point to sell Greenland, because there are, obviously, if you want to go somewhere in the Arctic north, there are other options, a lot of which are a lot more accessible and a lot of which the United States is not presently threatening to invade, at least as of this recording. What's unique about Greenland? Why should somebody make the effort to come here instead of going to Iceland or Norway or Finland?
- [08:00]
Casper Frank Muller
Let me, let me say it this way. Just imagine we're 56,000 people living on Greenland. We are one third of the United States, square meter wise. Imagine the amount of square meters per person and that's exactly what we love. Like we are most likely one of the last untouched ecosystems on earth. When you go out in these shores, when you start to fish, no one would believe the abundance of wildlife out there. When we go out during summertime, we see humpbacks, humpback whales, we see white tailed eagles, we see reindeers. Again, it's that crazy that when we don't go to the supermarket to buy meat, no, we go out and catch it ourselves because that's what we've always done. And when you have an ecosystem that have been untouched in that way, everyone can do it. So we all survive and bring out a food. If it's fish or it's birds or it's reindeer or musk ox, you name it, we can get it ourselves. And being able to take a step back into history and explore something that unique, I think that's probably one of the most impressive selling points.
- [09:02]
Andrew Muller
Assuming to the extent that we can assume anything, that basically everything stays more or less okay in a geopolitical sense over the next five to 10 years. Where do you see this business scaling to? Because you must also have concerns, or Greenlanders in general must have concerns about becoming too popular.
- [09:23]
Casper Frank Muller
Yes, exactly. I think that's exactly where you need to find the right balance. I think as a Greenlandic tourist destination, as operators all over the green, I think the most important aspect is to focus on quality or quantity. We're an expensive destination and so you need kind of a bit more wealthy people to come here. But that is a bit unfortunate because I think everyone should have the possibility in their life to come and explore Greenland. But boat chartering, helicopter, tourists, flights, that's how we get around. Again, you can't drive from a car to another city. That's not how it works, so it's expensive, but again, we have to do it in a sustainable way. And that's, I think that's the most important part because again, tourism has such a big potential for the future because it's actually an industry that preserves culture, it preserves nature. So for us to be disturbing the nature will destroy the fundament of our business, because that's exactly what we show to our customers.
- [10:22]
Andrew Muller
But for Raw Arctic, if we focus just on your company, like what would be the difference between how many customers you're handling annually now and how many you think you would like to be, say, five years from now?
- [10:35]
Casper Frank Muller
Of course we, we want to scale, we want to become bigger, but it doesn't have to be regarding our operations. So one of our business models is that we work as an agent. So let's say, for example, you want to go for a more extreme tour to, to north side. You want to go to Kannok, for example, which is almost up at the beautiful air base. Again, there are some locals there that's, that usually won't get tourists. But because we can work as an agent and we can set people out to the different areas of Greenland, we create wealth for everyone. And I think that's really important as of how we want to scale it. Again, I don't see ourselves having operations anywhere else that enou because this is the place we know. So when we say set a guest to south or east or west or north Greenland, who should be the guides? Those that lives there, those who grew up in those areas. Because that's the authentic experience. I think you should really maintain it that way. And we want to support that development. Everyone should get the benefit of tourism.
- [11:35]
Tom Edwards
That was Caspar Frank Muller, the CEO and co founder of Raw Arctic, in conversation with Monocle's Andrew Muller and I assure you, no relation. You can find out more about Casper's business by heading to rawarctic.com. You're listening to the entrepreneurs. Eugene Timiewski is the CEO of EuroAtlas, a European defence technology company. Building rugged, ready to deploy systems for the modern battlefield. From autonomous underwater vehicles to power electronics, surveillance, optics and counter drone technology, Euro Atlas designs systems built to operate in the toughest real world conditions. They're also the creators of Greyshark, a long range, high endurance drone built for operations beneath the sea. I caught up with Eugene just after he'd returned to land fresh from a new round of trials in the frigid Baltic. And I began by asking him to recap the Euro Atlas story.
- [12:37]
Eugene Timiewski
So Euroatlas has been set up 63 years ago to produce power electronics for submarines. So not everybody knows what power electronics is. When you have an engine then you typically produce AC currents. But sometimes you don't need AC currents, you need DC currents. So you need AC DCs and DC DCs and DC ACs. And then you put all that in switchboards, for example. So that is what you need also on a submarine. And we've been doing it for 63 years for the undersea domain. But then we actually expanded that also for surface vessels like motor starters for helicopters, to give you an example. And then we also put it into jet fighters. The Yask Repen, which is in high demand nowadays, also has a power supply from us in some parts. And then also we do it on land based systems. So for example we powering in anti rocket rocket launcher which is actually in use in the Ukrainian war. On top of that we now introduce an autonomous underwater vehicle which is called the Grayshark. And that covers roughly what Euro Atlas is doing. We are 135 employees. We grown from 55 employees not long ago to 135. And we aiming to be 150 by the middle of next year. We have now several locations. We open one up in Kiel now we have a sea trial space in the north of Germany near Kiel. And we also expand it at our site in Bremen.
- [14:20]
Tom Edwards
It's an amazing success story. And let's talk a little bit more about Greyshark and this autonomous underwater vehicle because I think there's been a lot of column inches dedicated to drones to the aerial unmanned sort of story. But underwater is super interesting and super exciting. To what extent are some of these AUVs Eugene now capable of doing work that was actually maybe traditionally done by manned submarines? Because there's so much whether that's protecting undersea infrastructure, reducing attacks through mines or sabotage, but also actually countering submarine threats, but all done autonomously. How fast has the development been in this area to allow autonomous vehicles to actually pick up a lot of that work?
- [15:06]
Eugene Timiewski
Yeah, that's a very good question. And in all fairness and all honesty, what we can now provide, and not just us, I mean other companies as well in the underwater defense autonomous arena, we couldn't do, let's say five years ago or even three years ago, autonomy really means computing power. And it is not so much the computing power of the computer itself, you know, it is more like the surroundings of it. That means, you know, the heat it actually develops. So you need to have a cooling system and then Also the consumption. So five years ago, computers with the computing power and the consumption and let's say lower heat dispersion, they probably would have been in the size of, I don't know, you know, a big, big passenger car. And nowadays, you know, we can put it into a standard kind like framework. And I think that really, really makes the difference. It's really about size. So now having this computing power, an okay heat dispersion and a relatively low power consumption, then you can actually use the sensoric, which is available nowadays, and create true autonomy. A lot of people say, oh, our system is autonomous. What it really means is so called waypoint programming or waypoint autonomy. You still have to program the auv, where to go, where to search, what to search, when to dive, when to come up, what to do with the data, and also guided to come back. What we try to do is we have true autonomy. And that is important because what we've been told by Navy operators is they need three things, speed, endurance, and range. So with our advanced propulsion systems using, utilizing hydrogen, which is just physics, has more than five and a half times more capabilities in these dimensions, we will be in a situation that, like, say, for a reconnaissance mission, our vehicle can be underwater, not communicating with anybody, if required for many, many, many weeks. And therefore you have to be truly autonomous. Nobody is telling it to turn left, right, up, down, go forwards, go to this waypoint or whatever. It has to be truly autonomous. And this is, as I said, is really only being made possible with the development of computing power and also the sensors, the capabilities, the resolution of sensors and speed of computing, also for the sensors and also the capability of fusing sensor data together. So it's a really recent development.
- [18:26]
Tom Edwards
Well, talk to me then a little bit about what your expectations are for deployment and, you know, when this hits the water, give us an idea of what is that life cycle of testing, exploration, you know, pushing the limits. Because, you know, we already said, you know, the pace of development in some of the hard tech is so fast. What does that mean in terms then, of course, rollout for a product like this?
- [18:51]
Eugene Timiewski
Yes, in a way, we are in a much more comfortable situation than, for example, aerial drones. If I were an aerial drone producer, I would probably not sleep very well during the night because there's always another startup around the corner which has something which flies faster, has more autonomy, is cheaper, can carry more payload, and so on and so on. I think one of the admirals who is also in charge of that, even if he is an admiral, he said, my Problem is, why should I buy any aerial drones now? Because they are completely obsolete within three months. So luckily the life cycle, what you're referring to underwater is not like this for us because it's very highly complex, very harsh environment. The requirements are completely different. Also the mission profiles are different. Also the expenditure you have to actually get something going there is much, much higher. I think a life cycle is still in years, not many years, to be honest. I think probably within three years, if we were not doing anything with our Cray Shark, we would be obsolete. I mean, we see this now with one of the pioneers ones. Everybody is badmouthing them how bad their performance is. I see that completely different. I have great respect for the pioneers of the industry. I mean, I don't name it names, but there's one from Norway and there's another one from Israeli and Germany. And for me they are pioneers as they have done a great, great job to actually get this going. But of course they're completely obsolete in terms of their performance capabilities and they have been developed some years ago. So yes, three years. And you're completely right, we don't want to be obsolete in three years time. So therefore, whenever there's a new sensor which is better, wherever there is a new battery which has more performance, whenever there is another fuel cell which is a higher efficiency, wherever there is a new whatever propeller design, we will implement it immediately into our current offering to be always state of the art of the technology. And this is required, as you said, you know, the technology is moving so fast, you have to keep the pace of the technology development, otherwise you will be out within seconds. So that's our approach to counter that.
- [21:35]
Tom Edwards
Let's talk a bit about inspiration. Obviously people who read about your partnership with Evologix will know about the sort of the penguin, the shape and form of the penguin. Obviously this product is called the Gray Shark. But I know also there's kind of influences from across maritime life, dolphins and how they move and communicate as part of it. Talk to me a little bit about how, because I think it's really compelling how the sort of natural world and some of these creatures not just in shape and form, but also in function and in ambition. That's an interesting process, isn't it?
- [22:06]
Eugene Timiewski
Yeah. The original founder of Evologix, where you rightly say, you know, we have an extremely close partnership and I hope they are as happy as we are working together with them. So far, you know, it has been really a success. So quickly develop something. So the original founder of IT he's been a professor of marine biology and he made this for us now famous saying, you cannot beat 30 million years of evolution. And in more practical terms he is absolutely right. So when you put our body into a simulation, it is so much more efficient. I mean this is just crazy. And you can see it that when I give you an example when we have forward looking multibeam sonar, horizontal and also vertical, the horizontal one creates a drag of several percentages in comparison to a completely streamlined body. So the pingering shape, what it's based on, it's really the perfect shape underwater. And we always try very, very hard. That's why we have to cover on the top and you know we're going to get rid of the skids on the side and so on and so on. To come close to this perfect shape, it means more efficiency and that means more miles or higher speed and longer range. When you compare that to a typical torpedo shaped auv, the difference between our shape and the torpedo shaped one is maybe not so great when you go straight, but the point is that you are an underwater vehicle and underwater vehicles, they dive and they come up to the surface. And the most energy our competitors lose by not being able to dive and come up in steep percentages. With this body we can act like a jet fighter underwater. So we can actually dive at a degree of 85% and we can up to the surface with 85%. So almost like vertical. So the shape is extremely important. And then the other thing is we always joke about it, but that's the reality. The Pinguin you're referring to from Evologics is called Quatroin. And the Quadroin has two things. A it has a shape and B, it has the basis for everything we talk now, you know, of course, A, much more the sensor, fewer sensors, but it also has shown capabilities which we just transformed into a bigger body. So the Gratroin is actually the mother of the gray shark and we are very happy about this. When we presented it at the Euro Naval in Paris last year in November, we had a little Quatroin on the bottom. So it was a running joke to say, look, that's the mother of this six and a half meter baby. So that was always a good icebreaker.
- [25:18]
Tom Edwards
And just a quick final thought. What are you most excited about, Eugene? Obviously there's the ongoing. We talked about the pace of innovation and progress. It must be so exciting, I guess to see these amazing products actually deployed, doing the work, you know, they can. That'll be the Kind of the next thing on the list. But what are you most excited about at the moment?
- [25:37]
Eugene Timiewski
It is like, you know, you feel like you're giving something to the world. The process of creating something from some electrical current in your brain to actually then physically be able to touch it and seeing it. Diving, you know, that was just mind blowing. It was nothing more than an idea. And it was in the beginning a handshake agreement. And then 18 months or 15 months later, it's actually your baby is actually in the water and it actually dives. The first dive I think was 21 seconds and everybody was screaming and shouting of joy and wow. The dive, the dive, I mean, it's a joke now. It can do hours and hours and whatever. But that was probably one of the most exciting bits. And then the other thing I believe we should not forget and unfortunately I think we forget it more and more in my personal opinion. We are in the middle of a war. So there are people not far away from us, hundreds of kilometers only they die and they get wounded and they bleed to death. And every second we talk now and we are there and that's our freaking excuse. My French responsibility to support these brave people as much as we can. And I'm not saying, you know, we developed that for the Ukrainian war. That's what I'm saying is because we're doing other stuff which goes there. But at the end of the day, this crazy man in Moscow, he will not stop, that's for sure. And 50% only of the whole military industry spent goes into the Ukrainian war from Russia. Guess where the other 50% is going to prepare to attack us and the Baltic Sea where we're doing a lot of our sea tests and trials. That's going to be one critical arena of conflict as early potentially than 27, 29, 34. So the other exciting thing is our, let's say, aggressors in the world, and we know who they are, they don't stop developing attacks, autonomous underwater vehicles, and they probably have something already in the pipeline. So what we are doing is kind of like just counter it. It's not like, hey, we have our product and nobody else has it. We are in a race. We are in a weapons race. We talked about accelerated technology and that will not stop. So we must not stop. And that also excites me that I have. I believe, and I hope that myself and my employees and everybody involved, we can contribute a tiny little bit, hopefully to make this world a little bit safer, producing something of what we're doing. And that drives not just me, but a lot of people in our company.
- [29:02]
Tom Edwards
That was Eugene Timieski, the CEO of EuroAtlas. Find out more. Head on over to euroatlas.com. And that's all for this episode of the Entrepreneurs. We'll be back, of course, at the same time next week. The program's produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by Jack Jewers. You can listen again and find out more about the show@monocle.com that's where, if you're savvy, you can subscribe to Monocle magazine and ensure you're to ready reading more about better businesses every month. If you'd like to get in touch with the show, do email Laura. You can find her@lrkonical.com I'm Tom Edwards. Goodbye and thanks for listening to the Entrepreneurs.