Innovation Birmingham Campus-based Ventive is seeking a local company to manufacture its award-winning low carbon ventilation product. The order is anticipated to be worth £2.5 million per annum.
Tom Limpinski & Rob Morrison of Ventive, Vince Cable – Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, and Ed Daniels – Chairman of Shell UK Ltd.
A regional winner in this year’s Shell Springboard competition, Ventive’s patented product invention breathes fresh air into homes without the heat loss, running costs and maintenance usually associated with domestic ventilation systems. While it is suitable for installation into any home, the product is capturing the interest of the Social Housing sector as a way of ventilating housing stock in the most energy and cost efficient fashion, resulting in real savings to occupiers’ utility bills.
The product requiring manufacture is the ‘Ventive S’ passive ventilation system with heat recovery. The heat exchanger is constructed from sheet aluminium fins, with an aerodynamic roof cowl element made from styrene requiring injection moulding.
Tom Lipinski, product inventor and Technical Director of Ventive Ltd said: “We live in London, but chose to base the Ventive business in Birmingham due to its manufacturing skills base. We now have a team of three people working from the Innovation Birmingham Campus, building relationships with distributors and large potential clients.
“The next step is to forge a partnership with an innovative manufacturer in order to produce the ‘Ventive S’ in much larger volumes. Based on our projected order pipeline, we expect to be producing £2.5 million worth of the product by the end of 2014. We would actively welcome the opportunity to engage with local manufacturers who specialise in sheet aluminium and injection moulding.”
The ‘Ventive S’ works by driving the air in both directions (extract and supply) using two forces: passive stack effect – with warmer air naturally rising due to its lower density – and wind assistance. The heat is recovered from the outgoing air with the use of Ventive’s patented heat exchanger. The discreet product requires less than an hour of roof installation work for homes that already have a chimney in place, but it can also be installed to homes without an existing chimney.
Ventive is a graduate of Innovation Birmingham’s 2012 Low Carbon Incubator Programme, which is part of the European-wide Climate KIC (Knowledge Innovation Community).
Henriette Lyttle-Breukelaar, Head of Projects at Innovation Birmingham said: “Ventive is a formidable start-up that has already collected a handful of prestigious awards over the past 12 months. After graduating from our Low Carbon Incubator Programme late last year, the team went on to secure £900,000 from their initial funding round, enabling them to recruit a team of staff – based at the Innovation Birmingham Campus – and establish the Ventive brand in the marketplace.
“They are now ready to forge a partnership with a manufacturer and see the benefit of working with a local company. I am very keen to ensure that Ventive’s rapid growth and success can be drawn on as a case study of exemplary working relationships within the West Midlands’ burgeoning low carbon sector.”
