Member Article

Funding for young Teesside virtual reality innovators

A young Teesside company, already at the forefront of developing real-time 3D visualisations and bringing virtual reality technology into the business world, has won backing from UK Steel Enterprise to help it grow.

Middlesbrough-based Spearhead Interactive was set up last year by Dan Riley and Paul Li.

The company was born from more than four years of research and development carried out at Teesside University into online 3D technologies and their potential use for businesses and consumers.

By combining the technology used to create interactive experiences for computer games with 3DCAD data, the company has enabled the development of flexible and powerful business tools with a potentially massive global market.

Already Spearhead Interactive has attracted a number of awards, employs two full-time software developers and is drawing on a bank of talented modellers, animators and programmers.

Clients are in both the public and private sector, including companies such as MPI Offshore, Trading Standards Institute, Motorola, iEvo and H2N Nutrition.

With a £3,500 unsecured loan from UK Steel Enterprise’s Regeneration Fund the company is planning to expand both its staff and premises.

Dan riley said: “This small amount of funding is really important to us at this stage as we needed some input towards research and development, growth and promotion.

“It will help us to maintain our incredible momentum and be in the right place to attract the next level of investment. UK Steel Enterprise made the whole process very straightforward and speedy and we had the funding within a week of our meeting.

“As far as we know, there are no other businesses or organisations operating on the same scale and scope as Spearhead. We’ve built the business utilising more than seven years of hard work at the forefront of this new sector, perfecting the development process and pushing the boundaries of understanding for the theory which underpins it.

“Businesses are not yet fully aware of the benefits of real-time 3D technology and being at the forefront of the development is a great place to be and offers us some fantastic challenges.”

Spearhead Interactive’s software can be used to create 3D assembly manuals that show the step-by-step construction of products, plant or equipment and to demonstrate process flow management systems in real-time so that production bottlenecks are avoided. The company has also developed architectural models of all sizes and are exploring integrating numerous management systems.

Dan, who has spoken at international conferences about the technology, added: “The possibilities are endless, with real benefits for virtually every sector and we also ensure our solutions are cost effective so remain within the reach of smaller businesses

“Projects can range from a very simple application detailing the operation of a product or component through to the development of a fully functioning digital oil rig. We have developed 10 different demonstrators that cover various business applications and they are attracting a lot of interest.”

Sarah Thorpe of UK Steel Enterprise, the Tata Steel subsidiary that supports businesses in steel areas, said: “Spearhead Interactive is an exciting young company with great potential. Our Regeneration Fund is here to support start-up or young businesses like this that may be struggling to find a relatively small amount of funding needed at a vital stage in their growth.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .