Insights
Cohort Three Spotlight: TOffeeAM
Who are we? Founded in 2019 – with eight nationalities represented – TOffeeAM stands for ‘Topology Optimisation For Fluids Engineering for Advanced Manufacturing.’ TOffeeAM’s cloud-based physics-driven software for manufacturing design helps engineers innovate and improve their designs while ensuring new products meet all manufacturing requirements. Put simply, physics-driven means that the software uses the principles from physics (usually through highly accurate simulation) to help create better designs or solve engineering problems. This helps to quickly produce components carefully optimised for their use, such as cooling electronics or EV batteries, more efficient aircraft engines, or more effective carbon capture. We help engineers to: ⏳ Streamline design approaches, which can traditionally be time-consuming. ♻️ Optimise designs to reduce waste and increase energy efficiency. 📈 Generate innovative designs and maximise performance. 🗺️ Overcome time and resource constraints to explore more design options. 💸 Minimise the cost of manufacturing by selecting components that are cost-effective in the long run. 🌎 Collaborate on designs, even if located in different regions. 💡 Produce cutting-edge products to stay ahead of the competition. ⚡ Push the boundaries of what’s possible in engineering design. Our mission? To help engineers go further, faster – enhancing their creative power. The lightbulb moment? Before TOffeeAM, engineers struggled to fully take advantage of the creative possibilities of additive manufacturing to optimise the performance and efficiency of components. TOffeeAM was created to fill this gap in the market. But that’s not the end of the story. As customers seek new ways of mass-producing better-performing designs at lower costs for more traditional manufacturing methods – the market demand for TOffeeAM continues to grow rapidly. We’ve risen to the challenge, with a new brand set to launch with evolved capabilities to meet these needs. Where do we hope to be in five years? Helping many organisations – from the most promising start-ups to the world’s leading companies – design more efficient, higher performing, lower lifetime cost products that make the world a better place. Which emerging technologies excite us? The progress with AI has been dramatic – the possibilities are unimaginable, and processes are being improved in every possible way, including in the field of manufacturing. Another one is Fusion Energy – the impact of which on manufacturing would be paradigm-shifting. It has the potential to vastly increase the supply of energy while greatly reducing costs, all while being sustainable and non-polluting.
Sixth Sense announces its Third Cohort
Sixth Sense has announced the nine manufacturing startups chosen for its third cohort at the Showcase Day event on the 20th of September. The selected companies were chosen from a highly competitive pool of applicants, distinguishing themselves with groundbreaking solutions addressing critical manufacturing challenges with a focus on sustainability and digital reality. The selected startups, which hail from seven countries, bring unique approaches to some of today's most critical manufacturing challenges, such as improving product sustainability, eliminating waste, capturing real-time data, automating design, and incorporating robots into production lines. The nine startups are: Acerta Analytics, Canada: Acerta Analytics provides advanced analytics solutions that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) to turn complex product data into actionable insights. The solution enables automakers and suppliers of complex vehicle parts to improve quality in manufacturing processes and support early defect detection. Circularise, Netherlands: Circularise offers digital product passports for end-to-end traceability and secure data exchange in industrial supply chains. Their technology helps companies achieve transparency and sustainability by tracking the lifecycle of products and materials. Dessia, France: Dessia offers a platform featuring virtual "bots" that serve as companions to assist engineers in designing mechanical systems. These virtual assistants provide support and insights throughout the design process. Flexxbotics, Boston, US: Flexxbotics specializes in enabling high-mix automation-intensive manufacturers to create flexible next-generation machining environments. They utilize their breakthrough FlexxCORE™ technology to seamlessly connect and coordinate collaborative robots with existing automation equipment, IT systems, and personnel to deliver autonomous process control. Launchpad, Los Angeles, US: Launchpad utilizes AI and advanced simulation technologies to automate aspects of the design, procurement, and manufacturing process. They focus on concepts like mass customization, micro-factories, and software-defined robotics to create shorter supply chains, reduce waste, and deliver new features faster in the manufacturing industry. Rafinex, Luxembourg: Rafinex’s groundbreaking innovation is the AI stochastic topology optimization for safe, lightweight designs. This technology actively manages uncertainty and risks of real-life variability to create uniquely robust designs that remain safe even in off-design load conditions for application in safety-critical performance sectors such as aerospace, automotive, and tooling. RV Magnetics, Slovakia: RV Magnetics has developed the world's smallest passive sensor based on MicroWire technology. This sensor combines unique capabilities from electromechanics, electronics, chemistry, physics, applied magnetism, and industrial design, offering diverse applications. ToffeeAM, London, UK: ToffeeAM provides state-of-the-art multi-physics generative design software for engineering. Their mission is to empower engineers to optimize engineering components and systems efficiently, enabling them to go further and faster in their design processes. Zaptic, Manchester, UK: Zaptic provides job instruction and collaboration tools for frontline teams, along with a no-code toolkit designed to accelerate the digital transformation of daily operations. Their solutions help organizations streamline processes and improve communication among their frontline workers. These startups will embark on an intensive 16-week journey as part of the Sixth Sense program, collaborating closely with Hexagon to refine their offerings. As part of the Sixth Sense program, they will gain access to Hexagon's market insights, accumulated over decades of collaboration with industry-leading
Elaine Warburton OBE: Lessons from a lifetime of funding
As well as speaking to the Hexagon team and working with them to hone their products and pitches, the Sixth Sense cohort also gets to sit in on a number of fireside chats with seasoned professionals from the worlds of entrepreneurship and technology. One such person is Elaine Warburton OBE. A serial entrepreneur, she is founder and NED of QuantuMDx Group, founder and chair of ReadyGo Diagnostics and chair of Javelo Health. Her two founded companies are both delivering solutions to serious healthcare challenges such as Covid, cancer and TB. She has raised over £100m in funding, experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly of raising capital. Today, Elaine also acts as a program advisor to Sixth Sense. Here, she shares some of her top tips and experience of securing funding from over the years. 1.Pitch often “I did so much pitching – hundreds and hundreds over the last 15 years – because I'm a great believer that although someone may not be ready for you now, they will remember you if you had a good pitch.” 2. Always try and have enough money in the bank “I have learned that if you have very little funds in your bank account, you're in an extremely poor negotiating position. So, I try to keep at least six to nine months' money in the bank, preferably a year.” 3. Prepare to wait for payment “Revenue never comes in a timely manner. Despite the best will in the world, it takes at least three to nine months sometimes to come in. That needs to be factored into your budget certainly.” 4. Choose your board wisely “Don't be friends. Be really good mutual colleagues. Respect each other and also have a different skillset as well. Also remember that a board of very successful people will have egos to manage. I have had a huge amount of friction in some of the boards of my past.” 5. Specialist investors will understand your mission “I have had a lot of generalists as investors and often, while they were very nice, they simply didn’t understand about healthcare, how long things can take and the ethics involved. Meanwhile I have worked with specialist impact investors that have understood why we haven’t hit certain milestones and really understand the impact of what we are trying to do.” 6. Look for value-add investors “We were very lucky because we got access to value-add investors. Look for people who can open doors, people who can also follow on with more capital, people who can guide you when needed.” 7. Never, ever sign a personal guarantee “I once exited a business and thought my personal guarantees were cleared and my resignation as a director dealt with legally. Nine months later I got a knock at the door from liquidators telling me my old company was being wound up and I had to honour in full a personal guarantee over the premises lease. I was apparently the only director registered at Companies
The importance of sustainability in manufacturing and what we’re looking for
Sustainability is set to be a big topic for our next cohort as it is one of the two challenge areas set by the team – the other, if you need a reminder, is digital reality. It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that sustainability is high on the agenda. One fifth of the world’s carbon emissions come from manufacturing and production sectors and they use 54% of the world’s energy resources according to The World Economic Forum. Manufacturing is under even more pressure than most other industries to innovate more sustainable practices. This innovation could have a big impact – the European Commission suggests the product design phase impacts for more than 80% of a product’s environmental impact. Companies big and small are activating to make a difference. “Significant change is afoot (in manufacturing) and it necessitates bigger thinking. Those unprepared may find themselves being left behind,’ wrote Deloitte in a 2021 report titled “Sustainable Manufacturing: From Vision to Action.” Eva Carranza, head of sustainability, Hexagon agrees. “We are at a turning point in humanity because there is more awareness of the actual impact we have had on our planet. We are at that moment where we either act now or it will be too late.” Manufacturers have a range of areas they can target to improve sustainability. From resource consumption in prototyping, improved manufacturing, reduced energy use and waste created over product lifetimes, ensure durability, reusability, recycling and end of lifecycle. There’s so much to tackle. The role of start-ups “We must not only innovate our own processes but enable through our solutions that our customers produce more sustainably,” says Eva. “Start-ups can play a big role in this. Through programmes like Sixth Sense we have a further opportunity to further expose ourselves to new ideas and needs. This expands our thinking and could help us co-create specific features swiftly. We can also help these companies in their early stages to define and deliver on their sustainability missions.” This mission, for Eva, and one of the big things she expects to see from start-ups, is around improving utilisation. “Using data and AI to help us to understand the most efficient way to get things done is key. This is especially powerful in manufacturing where every 1% can mean millions of tons of CO2 emissions avoided or materials that don’t need to be extracted from the planet.” This goes hand-in-hand with dematerialisation – another theme she wants and expects to see coming up. This involves either using recycled materials, creating the ability to use parts again or ensuring they can be recycled. “It’s moving towards a more circular economy and involves starting any design process already thinking about the end of the lifecycle – which is not something we’re used to doing – manufacturers are currently preoccupied with what customers will do with something now, not ten years down the line. This shift, to a whole system thinking, can be accelerated with new technologies.” Inspiration for a future we
Why Nexus is at the heart of the opportunity for Sixth Sense start-ups
Sixth Sense offers innovative start-ups a range of opportunities and benefits if they join the programme. Central to this is the opportunity to become a part of Hexagon’s Nexus – a platform for some of the world’s most advanced manufacturing technology, accessed by our customers. But what is it and why would start-ups want to be part of it? What is Nexus? Launched in February 2023, Nexus is an open platform and innovation hub that brings together technologies from across the entire Hexagon ecosystem – including partners – to create new digital engineering and manufacturing solutions. It’s a place where people can collaborate in real-time. Taking different technologies and getting them to seamlessly work together to create powerful new systems that can accelerate innovation. Makes sense. But why did Hexagon create Nexus? The world is changing faster than ever before. Hexagon knows its customers are managing a huge degree of market complexity as they develop and produce products. Along with societal shifts, there’s an ever-increasing demand for innovation, customisation, and productivity gains, as well as an emerging need to focus on sustainability. To meet this demand, customers must optimise materials, production, and processes. While the technology exists, the fragmented market can make it impossible to move at speed and to realise the potential of what is possible. Nexus solves that fragmentation by bringing lots of different technology together. A better way of working – breaking down silos, driving collaboration and fully leveraging data and existing technologies to enable customers with the freedom to invent, design, produce in the most sustainable, efficient, and optimised way. How does Sixth Sense fit in? Hexagon’s team is busy building the Nexus offering, on-boarding new partner technologies all of the time. The more technology available on Nexus, the more powerful it will be at solving manufacturing challenges and enabling customers. The innovators that join each Sixth Sense cohort have the potential to join Nexus, adding their technology solutions to the library and reaching new audiences with their tools. It’s a busy shop front that will put our cohorts’ technology alongside that of some of the biggest companies in the world. It also opens up the door for further partnerships and collaborations. “No technology truly exists on its own,” says Stephen Graham, general manager, Nexus. “Manufacturing is full of complex product chains. This has its challenges. Being part of Nexus is a great opportunity to work with others to create real-time, collaborative workflows across different disciplines and organisations.” This makes Nexus one of the key ways that start-ups could access Hexagon’s huge customer base. “We’re seeding Nexus with all of our customers,” says Stephen. “That’s literally tens of thousands of manufacturing organisations around the world. It may well be the longest list of customers of any vendor in the manufacturing space.” What is the Nexus team looking for in a start-up? For the team at Nexus, Sixth Sense is an opportunity to meet the right kind of innovators for the platform. “If you’ve made it onto
Introducing our third challenge
We’re delighted to announce that the next Sixth Sense challenge has been revealed and we’re open to applications. Our next cohort will focus on two main themes: Building a sustainable manufacturing future Smart digital reality for collaborative manufacturing Read this blog to find out everything about the next challenge areas, who we’re looking for, and how you can apply. Who are we looking for? We’re looking for start-ups with a propensity for scale and a proven track record. They should be working on products for advanced manufacturing and have revenues of $3m or less, post-seed, Series A or A+. They will have been in operation for 1-5 years and have proven product market fit. Validation of investment from a third party and IP & licenses are not mandatory but will be an advantage. This is a global challenge, so we’re open to applications from anywhere across the world. We’re also particularly interested in diverse companies and encourage founders from underrepresented communities to apply. Sixth Sense is an innovate on the job scaling programme where ambitious start-ups can access Hexagon’s vast resources and connect with world class companies to solve some of humanity’s biggest challenges. When is it? The deadline for applications is 6 September and successful companies must be available for our selection day on 20 September. For those chosen to join the cohort, you’ll be taking part in a 10-week scaling programme culminating in a demo day on 6 December where the winners will be chosen. What are the challenge themes? Building a sustainable manufacturing future This theme encompasses decarbonisation, waste reduction, and resource preservation for sustainable product design. We might be talking about eco-design, materials innovation, circular economy, or product optimisation. Anything that accelerates manufacturing’s sustainable journey. Sustainability is a critical priority for Hexagon – it is a key driver of growth and tightly linked to our success as a company, and we are proud to call ourselves an enabler of sustainability. Regardless of whether companies operate within energy, transportation, construction, manufacturing, automotive or aerospace – any change must be sustainable. Focusing solely on improving competitiveness without consideration of environmental and social impacts is no longer an option. At Hexagon we are driving sustainable change with tangible impact and outcomes today. Our portfolio of digital reality solutions is making entire industries and nations more efficient, with significantly reduced emissions, minimised waste and improved safety for citizens and employees, every hour and every day. We know we can accelerate change if we work together with our ecosystem. That’s why we’re inviting start-ups to collaborate with us – if you’re working on something that could drive sustainability across the manufacturing product cycle – we want to hear from you. Smart digital reality for collaborative manufacturing This challenge area will explore how digital reality, Al, generative design, and NDT/NDE tools can optimise collaborative product design, virtual production simulation, analysis, and validation. This is an important area for us. Smart Digital Reality is Hexagon’s strategic advantage and the greatest source of value