Issue link: https://htpgraphics.uberflip.com/i/768723
MOMENTUM Our Innovation Optimiser has already progressed 2 companies into the Momentum phase of support, accessing up to £5,000 investment and a 12-month bespoke package of mentoring and support. Maximum Wind Ltd: a greentech software and consultancy business which has developed a new computational method to optimise spatial placement and energy forecasting of wind farms. Founded by Barry Johnston and Niall Coogan, their methods drastically increase the accuracy of wind simulations of prospective sites. This decreases the cost of wind energy, and increases the productivity of wind farms compared to current market methods. As innovators Barry and Niall's core mission centres on the transition to a sustainable energy system. Wind energy is a primary element of this transition and current models involved in placement and forecasting of prospective sites are sub-optimal resulting in inefficient wind plants and increased lifecycle costs. In their first year they have grown from a team of 2 to a team of 5 and developed a technical proof of concept which demonstrates a 30% increase in accuracy across a variety of climatological and meteorological conditions. They have also had confirmation from a prominent wind farm investor that their technology will have implications for wind farm financing. Niall Coogan comments: "The Innovation Optimiser is a truly unique resource which provides tremendous value. Key areas have been networking opportunities and introductions, a number of funding and incubator opportunities and support to get investor ready including aspects such as financial modelling." 2017 will be an exciting year for Maximum Wind, continuing to validate and demonstrate the technology whilst developing a scalable cloud platform. They also hope to have a formal product launch and progress to international expansion. For more information, visit their website at www.maximumwind.com. Metriculate Ltd: an innovative, cloud-based asset management and reservation system for the science and research industries. Operating on a Software as a Service (SaaS) business model, Metriculate solves the problems of locating, managing and reserving laboratory equipment, as well as encouraging collaboration and increasing the value returned on every equipment purchase. Founders Mark Ashworth and Max Hebditch, took the skills developed, investment provided and contacts made during the Innovation Optimiser Roadmap sessions and began work on the initial prototype of the Metriculate platform. Looking at plans for the future, Max Hebditch commented: "Next year we will test our systems with selected development partners. After that we will take the data and lessons learned from testing to build the commercial version of Metriculate. We will take on new capabilities and reach out to the first early-adopter subscription customers. We have already identified an initial partner, a new large research laboratory, which is on-board to trial an early-stage version of Metriculate." For more information, visit their website at http://metriculate.co.uk or get in touch at hello@metriculate.co.uk.