Spindrive, a Finnish cleantech company providing affordable active magnetic bearings for original equipment manufacturer, has secured a €3.8M Series A funding round. As an integral part of the journey towards sustainable industrial practices, Innovestor is thrilled to announce its continued support for SpinDrive through a follow-on investment.
Series A funding round, led by Rhapsody Venture Partners, with participation from Innovestor and Born2Grow, underscores the shared vision of driving global growth for technologies that cut industrial energy waste and pollution. The funding will enable Spindrive to boost its global growth, helping industrial machinery manufacturers affordably achieve higher energy efficiency and productivity by providing a frictionless alternative to high-maintenance, oil-dependent, and energy-wasting bearing technologies. The company will also develop a new range of Active Magnetic Bearings for new applications.
SpinDrive’s frictionless bearings are smaller, more energy efficient, and more affordable than its competitors. The bearings work through magnetic levitation, where there is no contact between rotating and stationary parts. No friction means no bearing maintenance for up to 20 years, even in high-speed applications, meaning high rotational speeds and energy efficiency without the risk of equipment downtime or maintenance breaks.
In striking contrast, traditional ball bearings in industrial high-speed applications have a 12-18 month maintenance cycle, requiring bearing replacement. SpinDrive’s bearings also provide condition monitoring and predictive maintenance of the whole machine, removing the need to install external sensors to monitor system health and reducing overall equipment maintenance costs by over 80%. Furthermore, the bearings require no oil to work, eliminating the need for polluting lubricants from industrial production. EU factories consume 5 million tons of oil-based lubricants each year, and traditional bearing-based machinery suffers from high leakage and contamination risk. This lubricant-free operation makes production significantly more ecological. It allows manufacturers to enter new markets, such as food, beverage, pharma, semiconductors, and hydrogen-based production, where hygienic, contamination-free processing is essential.
Another significant advantage is the energy-saving capability of frictionless bearings. For example, large machinery operating at 100kW to several MW requires considerable energy, and ball bearings limit machinery efficiency due to friction. Traditionally, OEMs’ use of AMB technology has been restricted by its size, cost, and complexity. By offering an affordable solution to overcome these limitations, SpinDrive’s AMBs and controllers enable manufacturers to reduce energy needs by as much as 15% by allowing increased rotational speeds in a vast array of systems beyond previously possible. This is a significant saving, as industrial electric motors currently stand for 46% of the world’s electricity consumption.
Improved energy efficiency is a key element in reducing industrial emissions. SpinDrive sees CO2 emission mitigation as one of its most significant contributions, and the company aims to help cut 500Mt of CO2 by 2050 annually by improving the energy efficiency of industrial machinery. New innovative technologies for fundamental machinery components, such as SpinDrive digital bearings, are essential in striving towards a carbon-negative future.
“Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time, but we often get stuck thinking about technologies like carbon capture when it comes to CO2 emissions. Industrial production is a massive part of the world’s energy consumption and climate emissions, so we must create energy-efficient and clean components to turn this tide. By improving the energy efficiency in existing and new machinery, we tackle the problem in a massive area and provide a significant impact,” adds Janne Heikkinen, CEO and Co-founder of SpinDrive.
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- Press release, Wednesday 8th November 2023
Additional information:
Heli Mehtätalo-Takala
Director, Marketing & Communications
+358 50 402 6781
heli.mehtatalo-takala@innovestor.fi
SpinDrive was founded in Lappeenranta, Finland, in 2015 with the purpose of commercializing magnetic levitation solutions for high-speed machines. SpinDrive’s vision is to become a world leader in advanced magnetic bearing solutions with IoT condition monitoring by increasing efficiency and reducing costs and maintenance in industrial bearings. The company aims to help mitigate CO2 emissions by 500Mt by 2050 annually and remove polluting lubricants from industrial production while ensuring profitability and reducing running costs. SpinDrive has raised a total of €8M to date from a syndicate of VCs and private investors, as well as public funding. The company has customers in Finland, Germany, the USA, Denmark, France, Italy, China and the UK. SpinDrive has offices in Finland and Germany. For more information, visit www.spindrive.fi or follow us on LinkedIn.
Innovestor is a Finnish investment company focusing on venture capital and real estate. In addition, we offer corporate venturing services. The firm currently manages four VC funds with total capital of over €200 million. Consisting of almost 100 growth companies across multiple sectors of technology and life science & health, it represents one of the largest private venture-backed portfolios in the Nordics. Our mission is to make good money. For more information visit www.innovestorgroup.com LinkedIn Twitter