Icona sees bright future for unique visualisation software

Spinout company, Icona Solutions Ltd. launched this week backed by a £300,000 investment from the White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund (WRTSF) - the venture capital fund owned by the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. Icona will market innovative software, developed within the Informatics Institute at the University of Leeds, to visualise the impact of manufacturing variation on product quality.

For the first time, engineers will be able to review the effects of manufacturing variation on the appearance of a vehicle/products using Icona software. For example in the automotive industry, Icona 3-D visualisation products will contribute to the world-wide trend to improve quality and reduce time to market for new vehicles through the increased use of computer-based virtual prototypes, rather than life sized real models.

The products are being targeted at both end-users in the automotive industry and major software vendors. They will be marketed for use in conjunction with industry standard computer-aided design (CAD) systems, providing greatly enhanced capabilities. Collaboration with major solutions providers such as IBM and SGI, will enable Icona to rapidly penetrate major manufacturing accounts.

Technical Director of Icona Solutions, Dr John Maxfield, said:
“Visualising the effects of manufacturing variation early in the design process will significantly reduce the number of quality problems encountered during the production of new models, leading to enormous savings in both time and money for manufacturers.”

Icona will combine their industry leading software products with consultancy services, customer support and training to deliver a comprehensive package in the field of visualising aesthetic quality.

Executive Chairman of Icona Solutions, Dr David Belford, said:
“This is an exciting opportunity: unlike many university spinouts, Icona is already well advanced in commercialising its technology for which there is a real demand in the automotive sector.”

The £9 million White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund invests in commercial opportunities arising from research at the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York and is administered by Aberdeen Murray Johnson Private Equity. Icona Solutions is the 16th company to secure venture capital from the Fund.

For further information, please contact:

Dr David Belford, Executive Chairman, Icona Solutions, Tel: 07831 812487
Email: belford@btinternet.com

Gerry White, Investment Manager, White Rose Technology Seedcorn Fund, Tel: 0113 2422644
Email: gerry.white@aberdeen-asset.com

Notes for Editors:

1. The WRTSF was created in 1999 with an award of £4.5 million through the DTI's University Challenge competition (the largest award made). Further investment from the member universities and from Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward has boosted the Fund to £9 million.

2. Executive Chairman – Dr David Belford
Dr Belford has been Chairman of a number of venture capital backed companies, including Executive Chairman of Prosys Technology, a Cambridge-based, process simulation software company. He successfully turned the company round and negotiated a trade sale to Aspen Technology Inc, of Boston, in 1995. His most recent venture was the secondary management buy-in of Charles Walker Holdings Ltd, a £20m turnover, Yorkshire-based manufacturer of conveyor belts, in 1999. He successfully negotiated a trade sale, to Habasit AG of Switzerland, in 2001 and remains as Non-executive Chairman. He is also Chairman of D-Sense Ltd, a dental instrumentation start-up from the University of Leeds.

Technical Director - Dr John Maxfield
Dr Maxfield is a University of Leeds graduate with a PhD in Computer Science. His research work has involved the application of virtual prototyping to the problems in manufacturing industries and has won international awards. He has published over 20 technical papers and has been an invited lecturer for networking, distributed multimedia, programming and 3D computer graphics courses at the University. He has presented his research work at numerous venues including trade shows, major conferences and workshops throughout Europe and the US and to a large number of automotive customers and industrial visitors to the University.

3. Informatics Institute, University of Leeds
The University of Leeds recently established a new purpose-built Interdisciplinary Informatics Institute is bringing together researchers and students from across the University in an exciting, dynamic environment. Multidisciplinary Informatics is a unique blend of computing skills and application knowledge, and this combination of skills and knowledge is leading to technological advances in fields as diverse as engineering, science, business and healthcare. Informatics encompasses computational modelling, visualisation, collaborative distributed computing and knowledge management.