who are we?

The Earth is weighed down with lots of humans and their things. Sometimes the ground can’t bear the weight. That’s why our name is Geobear. We support the ground when it needs help, so homes and businesses, airports, trains, roads and ports, keep running.

Geobear creates G7 taxpayers a savings potential of billions of euros in road and rail repairs alone. We’ve come a long way since it all started, at a department store in Finland, in 1983.

The shop floor was starting to look like a potato field. Trolleys were rolling away from customers, who couldn’t fill them with purchases and proceed to checkout. Business was suffering, customers were complaining. The shop manager wanted to relevel the floor without shutting down while builders made a new concrete one. So he called Veikko Hakkinen.

Veikko had invented a way to replace cement and grout with a polymer, which raised floors quickly and easily without the need for rebuilding. That’s exactly what the shop manager was looking for. Confident he’d found a solution to a serious problem, Veikko patented his invention in 1983.

From its humble beginnings at a Finnish department store, Veikko’s polymer solution started to seep all over the world. Timo Lahtinen became head of the business in 1987, and in the next 22 years expanded it into over 50 countries. Operating mainly under the name Uretek, the company completed over 100,000 projects, did licensing deals with more than 30 companies, created new techniques and got more patents.

By the time Timo retired from operative business in 2012, there were several companies using resin injection for ground improvement. Timo’s plan to become the market leader involved changing the licensing business into a contracting business. He did that in Finland and started the process in the UK.

London is now company HQ. CEO Otso Lahtinen has continued his father’s strategy by opening contracting businesses all across Europe and Asia. His vision is to save G7 countries billions of tax payer’s money and reduce frustration of metropolitan city inhabitants by avoiding closures during transport related ground improvement. It’s delivered professionally, yet always with a caring, human touch. So in 2017, to support its global growth, Uretek became Geobear: a company that’s aware of its pioneering past and committed to a future where societies, homes and businesses keep running.

Like the bear in its name, Geobear wants to walk on strong, stable ground.

What we do:

Geobear keeps things running. How? We inject a polymer into the ground that’s become unstable. It lifts buildings, fixes cracked concrete and uneven floors, and makes the ground stronger. We are 10 times faster than the normal way to repair subsidence, which involves building work and often closing the business or moving out of your house. But not with Geobear. The work is finished in hours or days, rather than weeks or months and comes with a 10-year guarantee.

Geobear is an environmentally friendly company. Working exclusively with Covestro (formerly Bayer Material Science), Geobear has developed polymers that don’t affect groundwater. Compared with the alternatives, Geobear’s carbon footprint is very low.

Geobear is a global company. In nearly 40 years it’s worked in over 50 countries, with main operations in the UK, Sweden, Poland and China.

When the ground gets unstable, Geobear fixes all the problems: cracks, uneven surfaces, voids, broken joints, pumping slabs, vibration echoes, water damage and more.

Geobear CEO, Otso Lahtinen (+447718476832), is keen to hear about customer experiences, so the company can continue to improve its service.

The Geobear team