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£2.1m investment raise as InVMA becomes Konektio

December 20, 2021 — A UK Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solution provider is celebrating a record 12 months in style after it completed a successful £2.1 million ($2.8 million) investment raise.

Konektio, the new name for InVMA, is taking advantage of the industry sector’s desire for digital transformation by rolling out its AssetMinder SaaS platform to help clients improve processes, runtime, safety and environmental performance by dynamically connecting people, process, places and things and providing intelligent insights and recommendations every day.

The funding round for Konektio was led by fund managers Mercia and Foresight, investing from both the Midlands Engine Investment Fund and Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and included existing investor Tern plc.

The additional capital will allow the firm to embed its technology in the operations of even more customers across industries including food processing, manufacturing, logistics, and water/waste treatment industries – monitoring and analysing thousands of things  every day.

It will also facilitate the recruitment of additional staff both in the UK and in its recently opened first overseas office in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, United States.

“We are entering the exciting scale-up period of our business and fully expect to significantly grow revenues over the coming months, leveraging the power of our solutions and the reach of our channel partners, including Dexis, ECA, PTC and u-blox. The institutional investment secured, including further support from Tern, will help us achieve these goals,” explained Peter Stephens, Chief Executive Officer of Konektio
“The next industrial revolution is about empowering people to do more with less and our rebrand to Konektio reflects that. It cuts through the buzzwords and all the terminology to focus on what our technology does best – connecting everyone with everything and providing intelligent insights people need.”

Al Sisto, CEO of Tern Plc, added his support: “We are very pleased that Konektio has secured a significant institutional investment in order to fund the next phase of its growth.  We welcome the Mercia funds as our partners, alongside the management and founders of Konektio, to help the business achieve its full potential.

Konektio’s main product is AssetMinder, an IIoT SaaS product that dynamically connects people, process, places and things – from on-site factory floors to the remotest locations they operate in, all designed to drive value across a business with value added insights, recommendations and targeted data driven analysis.

The technology gathers data from assets and devices and displays it to all members of the customer’s team via a single interface, allowing them to make informed decisions on maintenance, servicing, tweaks to processes and how they manage their energy usage.

Thousands of assets – from conveyor belts and fans to crushing equipment and robotic lasers – are currently connected to AssetMinder, with companies using it to consistently deliver increased runtimes and productivity, not to mention achieving greater control of their environmental footprint.

The core AssetMinder solution is already being utilised across 15 different sectors, with a number of new ‘extensions’ being launched in 2022 to offer customers even more features.

Co-founders Patrick Nash, Jan Hemper and Jon Hill, continued: “Companies have started to cut through the confusion around digital manufacturing and the next industrial revolution and now share a real appetite to see how the intelligent use of data can deliver short and long-term returns on investment.

“This is really good news for our business, and we are looking to capitalise on this fast-growing trend by investing significantly in product development, R&D and in supporting our global customers by creating a network of international offices.”

“The US technical centre is an important first step in this plan and will allow us to provide on-the-ground support to clients in this territory, as well as identifying new opportunities in that market.”

Peter concluded: “Our name change from InVMA to Konektio, reflects our ambition to be a company that creates true connected Industrial IoT communication and collaboration for a wide range of businesses.”

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund and Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund projects are supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.

About Konetio

Konektio connects the digital and physical worlds to digitally transform global industrial and manufacturing customers. Through their world-class expertise in IIoT automation solutions and services, including the IIoT SaaS product AssetMinder®, they help organizations succeed in their digital transformation journey by enabling visibility and control of their assets across the factory and externally in the field. AssetMinder® captures usage and performance data from smart digital sensors, providing advanced insights to unlock data-driven intelligence that optimizes processes, condition monitoring, uptime, and profitability across a range of industries including manufacturing, transportation, utilities, smart infrastructure, and food processing.  

Find us on FacebookLinkedIn and Twitter  

About Tern

Tern plc is an London Stock Exchange AIM quoted provider of venture capital to exciting IoT innovators seeking scale and market share. Tern takes influential positions in software companies that develop commercial IoT security, enablement, and analytics solutions for the healthcare and industrial sectors, where safety and regulatory compliance are important market requirements. As well as providing expansion capital, Tern uses its experience to proactively support the growth of its portfolio companies, creating a collaborative environment that delivers benefits to the individual businesses. Ultimately, Tern helps businesses to fulfil their exciting potential, achieve market leadership, and deliver strong exit multiples.

More information on Tern plc can be found at: https://www.ternplc.com

About the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF)

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund, will invest in Debt Finance, Small Business Loans, Proof-of-Concept and Equity Finance funds, ranging from £25,000 to £2m, specifically to help small and medium sized businesses secure the funding they need for growth and development.

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund is operated by British Business Financial Services Limited, wholly owned by British Business Bank, the UK’s national economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity.

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund is supported by the European Regional Development Fund, the European Investment Bank, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and British Business Finance Limited, a British Business Bank group company.

The MEIF covers the following LEP areas: Black Country, Coventry & Warwickshire, Greater Birmingham & Solihull, Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, The Marches, and Worcestershire in the West Midlands; and Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham & Nottinghamshire (D2N2) Greater Lincolnshire, Leicester and Leicestershire, and South-East Midlands in the East and South-East Midlands.

The project is receiving up to £78,550,000 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The programme will continue to spend to the end of 2023.

The Department for Levelling Up,  Housing and Communities is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.

The European Investment Bank is providing £122,500,000 to support the Midlands Engine Investment Fund. This follows backing for the Northern Powerhouse in 2017 and backing for the newly launched North East Fund. For further information visit www.eib.org

The funds in which Midlands Engine Investment Fund invests are open to businesses with material operations in or planning to open material operations in the West Midlands and East & South-East Midlands.

The British Business Bank has published the Business Finance Guide (in partnership with the ICAEW, and a further 21 business and finance organisations). The guide, which impartially sets out the range finance options available to businesses and provides links to support available at a regional level, is available at https://thebusinessfinanceguide.co.uk

About the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund 
  • The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund will invest in Microfinance, Business Loans and Equity Finance sub-funds which will offer financing ranging from £25,000 to £2m, specifically to help small and medium sized businesses secure the funding they need for growth and development.
  • The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund is operated by British Business Financial Services Limited, wholly owned by British Business Bank, the UK’s national economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity.
  • The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund is supported by the European Regional Development Fund, the European Investment Bank, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and British Business Finance Limited, a British Business Bank group company. 
  • NPIF covers the following LEP areas: Tees Valley Combined Authority, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Warrington, Cumbria, Liverpool City Region, Lancashire, Hull and East Yorkshire, Leeds City Region, Sheffield City Region, York and North Yorkshire.
  • The project is receiving up to £140,359,192 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.
  • The funds in which Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund invests are open to businesses with material operations, or planning to open material operations, in, Yorkshire and the Humber, the North West and Tees Valley.

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank’s core programmes support nearly £8bn of finance to almost 94,800 smaller businesses. Since March 2020, the British Business Bank has also launched four new Coronavirus business loan schemes, delivering almost £73bn of finance to around 1.6m businesses.

As well as increasing both supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of the finance options available to smaller businesses. The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to businesses about their finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success.

In light of the coronavirus pandemic and EU Exit, the Finance Hub has expanded and it now targets a wider business audience. It continues to provide information and support for scale-up, high growth and potential high growth businesses, but now provides increased content, information and products for businesses in survival and recovery mindsets. The Finance Hub has been redesigned and repositioned to reflect this, during this period of economic uncertainty.

British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. It is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government. British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. They are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at www.british-business-bank.co.uk.

 Figures as at end of June 2020

 Figures as at 28 January 2021

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