UK motors start-up emerges from stealth with ‘reinvented’ SRM
A UK start-up has emerged from a period of stealth to announce that it has developed a patented switched reluctance motor (SRM) technology which reduces torque ripple by 50%, making it significantly smoother and quieter than other SRMs. Monumo, based in Cambridge and Coventry, recently raised a £10.5m in seed funding and says it has signed NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) with numerous tier one engineering companies and OEMs.
The company, founded in 2021, says it has coupled deeptech AI innovation with traditional engineering expertise to reinvent the electric motor. Although its initial focus is on rare-earth-free SRMs for electric vehicles, it adds that “world-first approach” of combining simulation, optimisation and prototyping, has the potential for wider applications across the electric motors market.
Monumo says that its technology will reduce the weight, cost and materials of EV motors while delivering the same performance. It will achieve high efficiencies across drive cycles at all speeds, and solve the problem of overheating, while also improving recyclability.
Monumo claims it can optimise motor systems faster and better than any other company. “We’re creating disruptive motor system designs that are highly improbable to conceive by conventional means,” it says.
The company’s proprietary technology runs around 10 million simulations every day to test potential iterations of its motor designs. The platform can identify the optimal parameters for specific goals, such as cutting costs, raising efficiencies or improving sustainability.
The company is led by founder and CEO, Dominic Vergine, an entrepreneur and former VP for sustainability at the chip-maker Arm, and Dr Jaroslaw Rzepecki, the chief technology officer, who previously held software engineering positions at Siemens, Microsoft and Arm. The company has a 30-strong multidisciplinary team – half of whom have PhDs in areas such as physics, electronics, machine learning, computer science and engineering.
“We’re extremely excited to be entering this next phase of our business journey,” says Vergine. “We are driven by a desire to create a sustainable future and we know that the EV market is a crucial entry point for our technology. By partnering with OEMs and tier one engineering companies, our unique combination of simulation, ML, AI and motor design ability can facilitate genuine near-term impact in the EV industry. These incredible results from our motor simulations are just the start as we look to create genuine system-level optimisation for the first time. Naturally we’re excited about the company’s next phase of growth.”
One of Monumo’s backers is the venture capital company, LQD. “I believe that, in short order, Monumo will show the world that the impossible efficiencies they promise are not only possible, but of fundamental importance to how much impact we have on the planet,” says LQD’s founder and managing partner, Santiago Matheus. “It’s hard to overstate the role we anticipate this unique combination of technologies will have in the future of engineering disciplines and beyond.”
Monumo: LinkedIn
