Belfast-based factory tech startup Sensoteq has raised £3.1 million in funding. Maven Capital Partners known for investing in Pockit led the round, which included a £600K investment from TechStart Ventures.
This investment will help Sensoteq commercialise and accelerate the worldwide rollout of its existing suite of wireless sensors. Also, it will enable the company to expand its product range, and provide increased customer support, while investing in sales and marketing resources to further capitalise on the large addressable market. Sensoteq also plans for its global expansion.
Sensors for machine condition monitoring
Sensoteq was founded in 2016 by Alan McCall and Idir Boudaoud in Belfast. It specialises in remote wireless machine health monitoring to predict machine faults, remove unnecessary energy wastage, and increase reliability and resiliency on site.
It develops a range of sensors used to monitor industrial machinery’s temperature and vibration, which can be analysed remotely through the firm’s software. It removes the need for manual inspection, allowing for remote and continuous monitoring of production equipment in some of the harshest industrial environments and hazardous locations, and avoids costly and disruptive downtime on critical machines.
The company claims that these sensors have applications in various sectors such as automotive, pharmaceutical, mining, oil and gas, renewable energy, waste recycling, and food and drink.
Kappa X smart sensing hardware
The latest generation of smart sensing hardware from Sensoteq, Kappa X, features wireless technology, a replaceable battery design, and a fault detection capacity within a compact 25mm footprint. It can be mounted on virtually any piece of rotating equipment in any machine environment.
Kappa X, features all the benefits reliability experts expect from a smart sensor. The smart wake technology enables the sensor to enter ultra-low power mode to preserve battery life; auto-ranging allows the sensor to automatically scale up to +/-64G to measure peak energy exerted by the machine, and a wide vibration frequency range of up to 10kHz for the earlier detection of faults.
Alan Robertson, Partner at Maven, commented: “Sensoteq has developed and launched a market-leading product, giving clients access to previously unobtainable data that is invaluable in ensuring the health and ongoing performance of key production equipment. We have been hugely impressed by the global reach of the company and demand for the technology, and we are aware that customers greatly value and rely upon the technical expertise and support of the entire Sensoteq team. We look forward to working with Idir and Alan to further grow the business.”
Idir Boudaoud, Co-founder and CEO at Sensoteq, added: “The investment by Maven adds significant scope to the next phase of business growth internationally, and we look forward to expanding our team and services worldwide to support our customers in each of our global locations.”
