High-performance Wheel Manufacturer Dymag to Broaden Market with New Investment – exciting business development from SMF, Chris Shelley, CEO at Dymag.

Boundary Capital has announced its latest investment in CSA Performance Wheels, manufacturer of the iconic high-performance Dymag motorcycle wheels.

Dymag is now expanding its technology and product range to re-enter the lucrative car wheel aftermarket and OEM market with a newly developed range of carbon composite car and motorcycle wheels.

Dymag has also been awarded £7.1 million funding from the government’s Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI), which will rapidly accelerate the company’s product development programme. Manufacturing process cycle times will be significantly reduced enabling cost effective, high volume production of carbon composite wheels for the first time.
Boundary Capital led the EIS-qualifying investment alongside other experienced investors.

Carbon composite wheels provide a typical 30% to 50% weight saving against conventional aluminium wheels, dramatically enhancing vehicle handling, ride performance and improving fuel efficiency. The company is in discussions with several leading high-performance and premium car brands seeking to enhance their offerings to their more discerning and demanding customers.

The founder and CEO of Dymag, Chris Shelley commented : “This funding will enable us to bring previously low volume niche ultra-luxury performance products to a much wider market. Our initial target market is the high performance and racing car aftermarket. However, the bigger prize is to supply vehicle OEMs. Over the past 12 months several mainstream car and motorcycle manufacturers have announced intentions to adopt carbon composite wheels and there is a huge opportunity for Dymag to be one of the primary suppliers globally .”

Boundary Capital’s model is to appoint ‘Venturers’ to complement its investment. These are seasoned and experienced executives who can provide valuable support to portfolio companies.

Serial entrepreneur and newly appointed Venturer, Chris Brill, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to make a quantum leap in the composite manufacturing technology behind motorcycle and automotive wheels and establish Dymag as a leading global supplier in this rapidly growing market.”

Dr David Gee, Boundary Capital’s investor director, added: “Carbon composite wheels will become an essential element in enabling automotive OEMs to meet efficiency and performance targets and Dymag is well-placed to meet longer term pricing and volume challenges.”

About Boundary Capital
Boundary Capital focuses on SEIS and EIS-eligible investments in growth companies primarily in the technology space. Its team comprises experienced investors and entrepreneurs with a shared belief that businesses are much more likely to succeed if the right support is provided alongside capital. Boundary’s blended SEIS/EIS funds enable investors to benefit from enhanced reliefs whilst being able to support companies through to exit.

About Dymag
www.dymag.com or www.facebook.com/dymagwheels
Started in the early 1970s, Dymag quickly moved to the technology pinnacle developing diecast magnesium wheels for Formula One and GT Racing cars and inventing the world’s first three spoke Magnesium motorcycle racing wheels. It was on these very motorcycle wheels that the legendary Eddie Lawson won the AMA Superbike Championship on a Kawasaki KZ1000-S1 in 1981 and 1982, and went on to win the 1984 World Motorcycle GP Championship on a Yamaha YZR500.

Building on their success, Dymag expanded into manufacturing Forged Magnesium wheels, Forged Aluminium wheels and finally invented lightweight Carbon Fibre motorcycle and car wheels with an equally enthusiastic response from bike and car owners around the world. The company went into liquidation in 2009 and was rescued in 2010 by its current owners and has been successful in re-entering the motorcycle racing and aftermarket, supplying the winning BMW S100RR ridden by Michael Dunlop in the 2014 Isle of Man TT, and 6 leading British Superbike Teams.

Dymag’s rich heritage on four wheels ranges from Formula 1, IndyCar, Rally/RAID, GP Moto, Superbikes, Isle of Man TT champions and race winners driving to victory on Dymags, as well as many production Supercar manufacturers.

SMF is sponsoring Nottingham University Business School’s Engineers in Business Award. Developed collaboratively by NUBS and SMF, last year’s successful pilot produced six unique product concepts from undergraduate teams comprising engineering and business students studying the Entrepreneurship & Business module.

Last year the SenSei Team won first prize for designing and building a sensory glove that emits a gentle alert indicating the proximity of objects. When worn, the SenSei prototype glove showed how blind and partially sighted people could navigate safely and efficiently through everyday life.
The pilot was open only to business school students, but its success has resulted in the competition being expanded to include Nottingham University’s Faculty of Engineering, giving many more engineers the chance to participate.

Chris Mahon, Deputy Director of MBA Programmes at Nottingham University Business School and convenor of the Entrepreneurship & Business module said: “The bar has been set high for this year’s entrants in the Engineers in Business Award. The competition challenges students to use their creativity and lateral thinking by first identifying a problem and then developing a product concept that solves the problem. The aim is to create a solution that would make a big difference to people’s lives.”

The team with the most original and exciting idea with practical application, will win the NUBS/SMF Engineers in Business Award, £1,500 and career mentoring from SMF, the network of high-flying engineers awarded a Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA Scholarship who use their engineering and business skills to lead in blue-chip companies or their own entrepreneurial enterprises.
The runner-up team will receive £1,000 and the team placed third will receive £500.

SMF President, David Falzani commented: “The students have really grasped the essence of the competition; it’s about practical solutions to real problems, not just theoretical business planning. It’s about combining entrepreneurial and engineering skills with nous to create solutions and products that could change lives. The NUBS/SMF Engineers in Business Award highlights the work of talented young people while emphasising the relevance of engineering for a better world.”

A prototype of a glove that alerts blind people of the proximity of objects has won first prize in the inaugural Entrepreneurship and Business Competition run by Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) at The University of Nottingham and Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF). The SenSei Glove uses ultrasonic sensor technology to provide vibration cues on the distance from objects.

The SenSei team set out to create a product that can help blind and partially sighted people sense the distance of objects without having to undergo a lot of training. The SenSei prototype glove features an ultrasonic senor on the back of the glove. The battery operated ultrasonic senor emits different levels of sound depending on how physically close the wearer is to an object. A good analogy is the sound of a car’s parking sensor.

The SenSei team is now working on the ergonomics with a view to making the ultrasonic senor smaller and lightweight so that the glove is very comfortable to wear. The team hopes to gain a business development grant to help with the ongoing development.

Unlike other business competitions which focus on developing a traditional business plan, the NUBS/SMF competition challenges undergraduate students to create a novel product concept that meets a real need in society. Competitors also had to demonstrate use of engineering skills in the creative process.

Coming a close second in the competition was a team of international students who addressed the problem of feeling unsafe when walking in unfamiliar places. The team developed GPSafe, an impressive mobile app solution. Whereas most GPS apps provide users with the shortest route, GPSafe combines GPS technology with readily available public safety data to give users information on the safest walking route.

Team SenSei won £1,000 and life-time mentoring from SMF while Team GPSafe picked up a cheque for £500

Chris Mahon, Deputy Director of MBA Programmes at Nottingham University Business School said: “We are pleased that SMF has sponsored and supported this new competition as part of the Entrepreneurship and Business module. Engineering skills are incredibly important in business and the competition is a great incentive for engineering students to develop entrepreneurial skills. The judges and I were impressed by the creative ideas and passion for making a difference demonstrated by all who took part, so choosing the winners was difficult. Congratulations to the SenSei and GPSafe teams.”

The other product concept entries were:

• MUC: A novel product to clean cosmetic brushes for better hygiene
• Bliss Wrist: A device that improves sleeping patterns
• Wrist Watch: A telemedicine device
• Gym Time: An app to help choose the best time to visit a local gym

SMF President and Visiting Professor in Sustainable Wealth Creation at NUBS, David Falzani said: “We want to inspire young engineers to get more involved in business innovation. The imaginative entries show that engineering skills are well-suited to the creation of new business ideas. We’re aiming to make the Entrepreneur and Business Competition an annual affair.”

Sainsbury Management Fellows
The Sainsbury Management Fellows’ MBA Scholarship scheme enables engineers to gain a business education at a prestigious business school in order to pursue leadership careers in blue-chip companies or, alternatively, to create technology-led enterprises. There are more than 300 such Fellows creating jobs and economic wealth in the UK.

University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham has 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with campuses in China and Malaysia modelled on a headquarters that is among the most attractive in Britain’ (Times Good University Guide 2014). It is also the most popular university in the UK among graduate employers, in the top 10 for student experience according to the Times Higher Education and one of the world’s greenest universities. It is ranked in the World’s Top 75 universities by the QS World University rankings.

Sam Cockerill, Founder-CEO of Libertine FPE is a Sainsbury Management Fellow

Libertine is one of sixteen promising cleantech SMEs selected for the Clean & Cool Mission to San Francisco to connect with prospective investors, partners and customers.

The week-long Clean and Cool Mission kicks off on 17 January 2015. It’s organised by Innovate UK, The Long Run Venture, UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) and CoSpA (the Co-Sponsorship Agency).

Past missions have proven extremely beneficial for the companies involved, with over half a billion pounds of investment flowing into the firms since they returned to the UK.

Innovate UK’s director of technology and innovation Kevin Baughan said:
“With San Francisco at the heart of the cleantech ecosystem in the US, the Clean and Cool Mission is a fantastic opportunity for UK businesses to showcase their innovative technologies and identify growth opportunities in this thriving industry.
The level of investment achieved by previous Mission attendees is incredible and we’re really excited about the 16 companies selected for this year’s trip. Each chosen company has shown us new and exciting cleantech solutions with huge potential and addressing a multitude of environmental challenges faced by society today.”

Companies selected for the mission are addressing some of the most pressing climate challenges worldwide.

About Libertine
While over a billion people currently don’t have access to reliable grid power, those who do waste more energy than they use. To address these issues, Libertine has developed a suite of new “Linear Power System” technologies.

These new technologies will enable the development of a range of low cost, high efficiency appliances for small scale power generation, heating, cooling and transport. Libertine’s technologies combine linear electrical machines with linear gas expander systems. The technology will make “decentralised” power generation the norm, bringing clean, reliable and affordable power to wherever it is needed, and transforming the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

By licensing this technology to appliance developers with global reach and disruptive potential, Libertine aims to do for decentralised power what ARM has done for computing.
The Clean and Cool Mission will provide the perfect platform for Libertine to showcase its technology to prospective partners and investors to help scale the business to its full potential.

Twitter @innovate_uk, @CleanandCool and #cleansf.

We are delighted to announce that one of our most active Fellows in the SMF Alumni, Anne Richards, Chief Investment Officer at Aberdeen Asset Management, has been named CBE in the New Year Honours List. This is in recognition of her outstanding work in the financial services sector as well as her voluntary work.

Anne began her career as a research fellow at CERN, moving into the investment world in 1992 after completing her MBA at INSEAD as a Sainsbury Management Fellow. Her career has included research analysis, portfolio management and global asset allocation.

Anne was named one of the Financial News 100 Women in Finance in 2012, was Funds Europe Awards’ European Chief Investment Officer also in 2012 and is a member of the Board of Leaders of 2020 Women on Boards. She also holds a number of non-executive positions, including the insurance company esure, the University of Edinburgh, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Duchy of Lancaster. She is also a member of the UK Digital Skills Task Force.

Anne graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh and worked as a software engineer for several years before looking to make the move into business management. She credits SMF as the key enabler to her journey from “backroom to boardroom”. Anne commented, “I could not have made the transition to managing portfolios and global asset allocation without taking an MBA, which gave me the necessary management tools. The Sainsbury Management Fellows’ scheme facilitated that critical step up and gave me the confidence to lead.”

For highlights of Anne’s outstanding career achievements, read her story in Engineering New Horizons (pages 38-39).

Follow Anne on Twitter @AnneRichards16
LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/annerichards1/
Click here to learn more about applying for an MBA sponsorship.

Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF) has awarded £300,000 in scholarships to ten high-flying engineers to take their MBA at international business schools including INSEAD, IMD, LBS and MIT. Each engineer receives £30,000 towards their fees, helping them to add business, finance and marketing knowledge to their engineering skills.
The 2014/15 cohort of MBA awardees are:

Charles Sudburough	LBS
Kwok Gam Ng	LBS
Jorgina Busquets	LBS
Nicholas Allan	IMD
Philip Price	LBS
Farid Singh	INSEAD
Hersh Shah	IMD
Christopher Mannion	MIT
Nikhil Sachdeva	HBS
Mengyi Wu (pictured)	INSEAD

Commenting on the award, Hersh Shah said: “After reading Engineering at Oxford, I have spent the last eight years working with executives of some of the UK’s largest aerospace, defence and industrial companies on corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions and capital markets. I have decided to pursue an MBA at IMD Switzerland to broaden my international outlook, develop leadership awareness and gain new perspectives on solving global industrial issues from my future classmates and professors. I believe this will better place me to contribute to UK industry as my career progresses.

“I am delighted and privileged to be awarded the Sainsbury Management Fellowship and am grateful for its support. In particular, I look forward to being a part of the unique SMF network and hope to contribute to the future growth and advancement of UK industry in a global and competitive business environment.”

SMF was set up in 1987 by Lord Sainsbury to help engineers acquire skills that will take them into the boardrooms of Britain’s blue-chip companies or set up enterprises that will boost the UK economy.
Administered by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) on behalf of SMF, 330 engineers have benefited from the scheme.

Ten scholarships are available each year and applications can be made individually or in conjunction with an employer. To apply, candidates complete an online application form and submit with the required references and supporting documents. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an interview panel at the RAEng.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, so engineers can apply throughout the year. Candidates should meet the following criteria:

• Have a first or upper second class honours degree in an engineering subject
• Have chartered engineer status or be making progress towards it
• Have the potential and ambition to achieve senior management level
• Have secured a place at one of the 14 business schools that participate in the SMF scheme

SMF President, David Falzani, said: “The scholarships help engineers gain the business knowledge and experience needed to become business leaders and entrepreneurs. Our research shows that our fellows hold over 400 director and NED positions in blue-chip companies and start-ups, they have created 220 successful new businesses, raised £1.8 billion in venture capital or debt investments, generated 18,000 new jobs, and 260 fellows support and mentor young engineers.”

Q App, the leading mobile ordering platform, has been awarded a coveted title of ‘Best Payment Service’ in the annual Mobile Entertainment Awards.

One of the industry’s biggest and most prestigious events, ME Awards celebrates the achievements across the mobile industry and selects the leading companies across several categories.

In spite of the impressive level of competition in the Payments Service category, Q App edged towards the title thanks to its impressive product and the progress made with signing up new clients.

Now deployed in some of the UK’s best known venues, such as the Royal Albert Hall, Southbank Centre and Premier League grounds, as well as theatres, bars, pubs, coffee shops and fast food outlets, Q App is rapidly revolutionising the way people order food and drinks and removing one of the biggest pain points in hospitality – queuing.

Serge Taborin, a Sainsbury Management Fellow and Q App CEO, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been recognised by our industry peers as the Best Mobile Payment Provider. This award caps an amazing few months for the business, with more and more major venues joining the Q App ordering revolution. We will shortly be making a number of further announcements on Q App’s expansion with a number of major new deployments as we look to make queuing the thing of the past.”

Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF), the charity that awards MBA scholarships to engineers, is collaborating with Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) on an Entrepreneurship & Business (E&B) Poster Competition.

The SMF E&B Poster Competition prize will be awarded to the team that develops the most innovative business idea that addresses a need in society, demonstrates clear benefits to the target audience and incorporates engineering thinking within the concept.

A pilot, the SMF E&B Poster Competition is open to all business and engineering students taking the Entrepreneurship & Business Module, and competing teams must include at least one engineering undergraduate.

David Falzani, President of SMF explained: “We want to encourage and inspire young engineers to get more involved in business innovation; engineering skills are perfectly suited to the creation and development of new business ideas.
“Up to 120 teams will be presenting their E&B Posters at NUBS in December and for this pilot year we anticipate 30 of those teams competing for the SMF prize. These students will first give their poster presentation for their degree assessment in the usual way and a week later will re-pitch their presentation to the SMF judging panel”.
The winning team will receive the following prize from SMF:

• Career and business development mentoring
• Access to SMF networking events which are attended by entrepreneurs and business leaders from major UK companies
• £1,000 team prize

Chris Mahon, Deputy Director of MBA Programmes at NUBS, and module convenor of E&B, sees great potential in this new collaboration: “We are thrilled to be working with Sainsbury Management Fellows this year, and early evidence suggests there will be strong interest in this new competition. For us, encouraging engineering students to participate in entrepreneurship education makes sense in two ways. First, young aspiring engineers will clearly benefit from developing their entrepreneurial skill set. As David has said, this is a clear win. But our Business School students will also gain from working with the young engineers, and from a meaningful cross pollination across schools and programmes.”

SMF and Nottingham University Business School intend to run the SMF E&B Poster Competition annually, after reviewing the results of the pilot. In addition, SMF has a long term goal of partnering with other business schools to sponsor initiatives that spark engineers’ interest in business and entrepreneurship.

The 2014 Hard Hat Index (HHI), published by Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF), shows nearly 20% increase in the number of hard hats featured in a cross-section of key engineering publications. Last year’s Hard Hat Index monitored the same publications and recorded 185 hard hat images (118 advertisements and 67 editorials), compared to the latest HHI figure of 229 (86 advertisements and 143 editorials). While the number of hard hats appearing in advertising has declined, the number appearing in editorial has more than doubled, even though the publications have autonomy over the images used to illustrate stories.

SMF created the Hard Hat Index to demonstrate how pervasive of use of hard hat images are in influential media. The hard hat has become symbolic of engineers yet it projects an inaccurate and limited scope of engineering professions. This limiting profile of engineers has far-reaching effects on employers’ ability to inspire, recruit and retain engineering graduates because many do not relate to hard hat jobs.

Speaking at the SMF Annual Dinner, which is attended by senior business men and women with combined engineering and business qualifications and skills, President, David Falzani said: “Much like the whimsical Big Mac Index published by the Economist, the Hard Hat Index makes a serious point. The engineering community has long complained of a shortfall and a lack of understanding amongst the public of the value engineering creates.
“Over the last two years we have had a series of discussions with over 20 HR directors to better understand the decisions and routes leading to board of director appointments. One of the questions often raised is ‘why are engineers always portrayed by people wearing hard hats?’
“It’s a fair question. How do you visually portray engineering? A profession so diverse it encompasses bridges, aircraft, medical devices, and materials? How do you visually depict software? And above all, how do you convey the status and prestige of the profession, whilst holding true to 300 years of heritage?

“The image of engineering has never been so important. Generation Y is far more image and brand conscious than any before. The image of engineering is important because it has the ability to attract, inspire, recruit and, crucially, retain bright young engineers.
“The Hard Hat Index is therefore designed to highlight how our industry is representing itself. It is disappointing to see that despite the question of the engineering brand being debated in the engineering media over the last 18 months, the hard hat representation in editorial is on the increase. This begs the question whether our industry is open to reinvention in order to persuade the public that engineering is an exciting, dynamic and rewarding profession.”

A London Business School Incubator project has launched a website that demonstrates how 3D printing will democratise the means of luxury manufacture in the near future.

Banneya.com offers CAD-proficient jewellery designers on-demand access to the latest additive manufacture (AM) technology to realise their designs in precious metals. Each piece of precious jewellery is hand-finished to the highest standard. In the near future, Banneya’s consumer-facing luxury jewellery emporium will offer hand-picked designer pieces which are customised and produced to-order in a selection of precious metals and gemstones by Banneya on behalf of its designers.

Apart from a premium production service and curated marketplace, Banneya offers hugely beneficial business partnerships to jewellery designers and makers at all levels. Banneya and its designers will mutually benefit from the income generated from the platform as well as from the publicity, successes and resultant growth of their respective businesses. Together with a community of designers, Banneya will build targeted networks to share B2B introductions as well as offers, knowledge, resources and ideas.

Banneya takes pride in being an entirely UK-based company that keeps all of its processes within the UK. Focussing on precious metals and fine jewellery, Banneya is registered with the British Jewellers’ Association and hallmarks all pieces produced.
Founder, Nimesh Thakrar, holds an MEng in mechanical engineering from Imperial College London and an MBA from London Business School. Nimesh has always appreciated high quality design and manufacture, having previously worked in the automotive industry and in Formula 1. He also recognises the challenges and opportunities in e-commerce having worked in the Fashion team at Amazon UK. “The design freedoms that both wax printing and direct-metal-laser-sintering offer have already inspired and empowered new and existing jewellery designers around the world. Banneya aims to treat designers as partners and offer a new route to market for digital designers interested in luxury retail.”

Banneya is a member of London Business School Incubator programme and a recipient of Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Founders Award for the year 2013/2014.

CAD-proficient jewellery designers can use Banneya’s site immediately. On offer is expert design and technical support, the chance to have a piece of jewellery produced in sterling silver for free, several publicity opportunities alongside Banneya’s official launch in the summer, and an entry into Banneya’s first jewellery design award. Beta designers will also be first in line for selection for the future curated marketplace. All applicants will receive a generous reward in the form of a Banneya voucher.