Helping university spinout Rheality with seed investment

University of Birmingham spinout tech start-up, Rheality, deal with smart AI-based systems that significantly enhance fluid production by reducing power consumption and raw material wastage. The university spinout partnered with Clean Engineering to further expand their technologies across the UK, USA and Europe. Clean Engineering are an investment company who focus on sustainable investments in engineering companies, making Rheality the perfect fit to fund.

The technology created by Rheality allows manufacturers the ability to ‘see’ inside the production lines in real time. If there is an issue, it can be solved without having to stop production. On top of this, the manufacturer can continually fine tune their processes, leading to less waste and energy used.

Dr Francesco Colacino, Co-Founder and CEO of Rheality said:

Reducing energy consumption is only the first step in this revolution in fluid production efficiency. Our self-calibrating machine learning algorithm allows bespoke measurements, which respond to our client’s specific needs. Not only does data analysis get better over time - and processes can be controlled at more granular level, but customers can also choose what to measure wherever they want along their piping systems.

As a university spinout, Rheality faced challenges that many start-ups do – they needed funding to expand their tech across the world. That’s where Clean Engineering came in to help. Clean Engineering offer full support to early-stage, sustainable engineering businesses with a process called The Green Staircase. This process gives Rheality access to management tools, mentoring, expertise and investment, as well as offices and working spaces in the West Midlands.

Richard Bruges, Director of Clean Engineering stated:

This is the second time we have invested in a University of Birmingham spinout and our decision was driven by the chemistry with the founders, the demonstrable appetite from customers and the ability of the system to reduce waste and drive up the productivity of production lines.

As a new company just getting started, they required legal support for their initial seed funding investment round and Rheality onboarded to our Enable Plan. The Enable Plan is perfect for a university spinout like Rheality. As an Enable client, they benefit from one hour of legal support each month, flat rates on top of that and access to our full range of services.

Since being a client of ours, our solicitors from various departments have supported them with a range of legal work such as supplier and pilot agreements and EMI share schemes.

Our corporate expert Callum Giliker assisted with this investment round and commented:

It is always gratifying to be able to work with start-ups and university spin outs because our role is very much to help them take their hard work to the ‘next level’. It can be a daunting time for clients, but we always aim to make the process as smooth as possible. It was great working with Francesco and the team at Rheality, who clearly articulated their requirements and were generally a pleasure to get to know throughout the process.

The investment from Clean Engineering will help Rheality to continue commercialising their AI systems across the globe. Their future growth plans include employee incentive arrangements to help attract and retain talent as well as further trials and implementation in more manufacturing plants requiring corporate law advice.

When discussing how the Enable Plan has supported Rheality in their growth, Dr. Francesco Colacino said:

The flexibility of the enable plan works perfectly for us as a growing start-up. It’s like having your own in-house counsel without spending a fortune like other firms charge. Working with Callum Giliker on this funding round was incredibly easy and straightforward. Callum understood all our needs without us even having to voice it.

Rheality’s technology is currently deployed in manufacturing plants across the UK, Norway, Germany, Spain and North America.