Danalock interested in US market

AARHUS, Denmark—Danalock, a smart lock solutions provider for smart homes and businesses, recently hired Miami-based Bent Sorensen as its general manager, Americas, to lead the company's expansion in the Americas.

“We have been trying to do this for a period [of about] two-three years. But we also knew that it was very important for us to wait for the right person because setting up an office, setting up operations, setting up support, setting up everything—you need to have a person that has the skills to do this and knows the business,” Henning Overgaard, Danalock CEO and founder, told Security Systems News. “We were lucky that we knew Bent and he wanted to join the company. It was a perfect match for us.”

Prior to joining Danalock, Sorensen was the senior director of sales, Z-Wave Americas, for Sigma Designs. He officially joined the company on May 7.

The company's core product is the Danalock V3, which is ZigBee and Z-Wave compatible. Danalock produces a variety of lock types to fit its product for different geographies. “We need to support whatever is out there in the world,” Overgaard said.

Danalock has other access control related products, such as a module for controlling other doors in a user's home. “What is important is, from a user's perspective, you have exactly the same user interface. It's just another lock on the keychain on your smart phone,” Overgaard said. The company is also coming out with a keypad this year.

A team in Denmark handles all of Danalock's development and the company has a factory in China. The company's strategy is to support professional installers and security partnerships, Overgaard said, with a focus on quality of partnerships as opposed to quantity.

“It was extremely important for me to get into a company where I knew people very well,” Sorensen said. “I am certainly very excited to join this company, with just a fantastic product, and now they have an amazing keypad coming out to go along with it.”

He continued, “This is a fantastic standalone lock, but we realized that we are much stronger if we can work with other partners and build on an ecosystem, so that we have a bundle that we can go in and offer to security companies, insurance companies, MSOs, telcos.”

Around ISC West 2018, Danalock announced the integration of its V3 smart lock into Alarm.com's platform. “We're very proud of that corporation. It's a tremendous endorsement to be backed by such a big and well-known company within the security industry,” said Sorensen.

Danalock is also currently looking for security distributors, Sorensen noted.