Product category:
Industrial Development Agencies and services
News Release from: UK Trade and Investment | Subject: Support for Naneum
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 14 February 2008
UK development agency helps firm gain
sales
UK Trade and Investment has helped a manufacturing company to commercialise innovative airborne nanoparticle detection technology to gain a prestigious overseas sale.
Naneum is supplying a Wide Range Aerosol Sampling System (WRASS) to the University of Massachusetts (UMass - Lowell campus) Nanotechnology Centre The centre is one of the foremost institutions of its kind in the United States for developing and producing nanomaterials
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 19 Apr 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The instrument, costing around GBP 20,000, will be used for investigating airborne health risks at research laboratories and production plants, monitoring air quality and exposure to particulates given off during industrial processes.
Apart from a sale of instruments to NATO, this was the first export order for Naneum, into the world's largest market for its products, and an indication of where its future success lies.
From the outset, the company - whose main facilities are at the Canterbury Enterprise Hub on the University of Kent's Canterbury campus - had identified a global market for nanoparticle detection products in industrial, environmental and research applications.
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Particles of different sizes behave differently, and when breathed in are deposited in different parts of the respiratory system, causing differing degrees of damage.
The beauty of the Naneum WRASS range of sampling instruments is that they can collect ultra-fine particles, sort them according to their size and establish their structure and chemical composition.
* Compact and portable - previously, particulate identification instruments have been relatively bulky and confined to specialist laboratory use.
By contrast, Naneum's equipment is compact and portable, permitting in situ testing.
This advantage, along with the products' low cost, accuracy and ease of operation, supports Naneum's ambition to be a bulk supplier of devices that allow routine monitoring of the air for nanoparticles (less than 0.1 micrometre/micron diameter).
However, it needed expert advice and support to begin marketing its instruments to overseas.
Company director and co-founder Dr Robert Muir heard about UKTI through its flagship programme of tailored advice and assistance for new and inexperienced exporters, 'Passport to Export'.
Contacts at the Canterbury Enterprise Hub recommended he speak to UKTI South East International Trade Adviser Mitzi Swanson who signed Naneum up to Passport to Export.
A key aspect of developing the business was to find distributors, and Dr Muir attended a seminar staged by UKTI South East on how to go about this.
Having identified the USA as the key market for its products, Naneum also needed UKTI's help to develop sales contacts there.
Mitzi Swanson and the UKTI representative in Kent, David Bax, were able to offer tips on marketing.
Additionally, the UKTI told manufacturingtalk.com that it gave financial assistance to Naneum to make a presentation and mount an exhibition stand at the high-profile International Conference on Nanotechnology Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety (NOEHS) in Cincinnati, Ohio, last December.
The conference generated a number of contacts, including UMass, which Naneum hopes will lead to further sales as the reputation of its products spreads through the tight-knit nanotechnology community.
With the UMass sale secured, Naneum is now in talks with other nanotechnology centres in the US, notably those at Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), with a view to supplying them as well.
* Funding - "The UKTI funding that enabled us to go to the US and exhibit our products was critical for a young company of this size, when the majority of our focus and expenditure is, in the early stages at least, devoted to product research and development rather than marketing," said Dr Muir.
He added: "UKTI support has given us the confidence to move earlier into export markets than we otherwise would have done, and we now have a network of contacts in the USA and other important markets, such as Germany, which we are confident will lead to sales.
Mitzi, in particular, has continuously reminded us of the need to market professionally, making very valuable suggestions about how to approach overseas customers".
* Exapnsion - Naneum finds itself well positioned to take advantage of the expansion in the market for in situ particulate monitoring.
The US remains the market with the greatest potential, but there are other, growing, markets in Japan, Germany and elsewhere that the company plans to target.
After the strides made in the US, Dr Muir is keen to continue to benefit from the expertise of the UKTI South East International Trade Team, backed by the knowledge and contacts of trade staff in British diplomatic posts around the world.
Swanson said: "Naneum is an excellent example of a young company which, with the right product, can make inroads into export markets almost from the outset, and found its business strategy and growth on overseas sales. Request a free brochure from UK Trade and Investment ...
Their success also demonstrates what UKTI's market- and sector-based intelligence offers to high-technology start-ups - and other companies - in helping them maximise their opportunities.".
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