Member Article

Imperial College spin-out secures £1m seed investment

Imperial Innovations Group has completed a £1m seed investment in Inflowmatix, a water network data analytics company recently spun out from Imperial College London.

Inflowmatix provides water flow and pipe health analytics to water utilities worldwide, enabling network operators to continuously monitor, diagnose and manage hydraulic instabilities, leading to reduced bursts, leakage and operating costs, whilst also enabling prioritised network maintenance.

The company’s first product is based on the research from Dr Ivan Stoianov’s InfraSense Labs, in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London.

Innovations now holds a 42.5% stake in the Company.

Dr David Parker (FREng), a Venture Partner at Imperial Innovations, has joined the Board of Directors of Inflowmatix as Chairman. He has extensive experience in building companies from early-stage, through to private and public exits, along with a long career in senior management in technology corporates. Notable companies include HP, Agilent Technologies, Marconi, SPI and TRUMPF.

Dr Ivan Stoianov, founder of Inflowmatix, said: “Much of the existing water infrastructure in many countries is approaching the end of its usable lifetime, while still being expected to provide high quality of service to increasing populations. In London, for example, almost half the water pipes are over 100 years old and many pumping stations are more than 40 years old.

“The optimal use of limited resources require continuous and near real-time information about the hydraulic behaviour of such complex systems to optimise their performance and improve incident management.

“Imperial Innovations has been very supportive throughout the development and spinout process and I am very pleased that they have decided to invest.”

Kelsey Lynn Skinner, Director Technology Ventures at Imperial Innovations, added: “Ivan and his lab have developed outstanding IP which offers significant benefits to water utility companies worldwide that need to balance the management of ageing infrastructure with the demands of a growing population.

“It is an exciting opportunity and a great example of how we can support scientists at Imperial from IP development and protection, through to company formation and beyond in a complex B2B market.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .