Over the last 3 years, Caption Data have invested nearly £1/3 million into technology and new products to exploit their leading position in the market for the Internet of Things (IoT). This is the technology that allows real-world devices to communicate to and be controlled via the internet using smartphones, tablets, PCs and any other internet enabled device, via any browser.
Caption Data have funded this investment via a series of financial arrangements, starting with a private investor in 2010 putting equity & loans into the business, ongoing re-investment of trading returns, and in 2013/14 a further round of equity and debt funding, as well as some matched grant funding.
The company has developed a number of industry-leading and award-winning products through this period and with system populations in thousands across 15 countries around the world Caption Data is poised to announce further, major, new product releases in the coming months.
Some examples of the products already released are:
For the Water Damage Restoration Industry, The HygroBug™ development not only won ‘innovation of the year award 2013‘ at the British Damage Management Association’s (BDMA) annual awards dinner, but has gone on to receive wide commercial success with sales exceeding the companies forecasts and continuing to grow.
In the case of the HygroBug™ the partnership between Caption Data and Warwick University’s WMG was pivotal with 2 separate Ph.D. internships being involved in the development of this new sensor.
Another result of the R&D spend was the creation of vibration monitoring equipment the RDL//Vibe™. Creating a totally new approach to monitoring shock and vibration for consulting engineers, contractors, etc; the design focused on robust, autonomous operation, monitoring locally in real time and sending data on “events” via GSM to the CDLSmartHub where sophisticated analysis and reporting is achieved. Once again the devices continued the Caption Data hallmarks of simple at the point of use, robust, autonomous, cost effective, with massive benefits and return on investment for users.
For wider use in both environmental and structural monitoring, the RDL//1000 range has been developed and launched and offers a unique combination of properties in a wireless sensor network, which has already resulted in sales of several hundred systems and adoption by some major companies as their standard for the future. Some of the benefits are
Ready for launch in the next few months will be the following new systems:
A brand new HygroNet system, offering dramatic improvements to the existing industry-leading product which is now approaching 5 years old.
A part of this new system will be the first ever wireless sensor to remotely monitor the GE [now Amphenol Advanced Sensors] Hygrostick™. This follows an 18 month technical collaboration between GE/AAS and CDL.
A complete replacement for the RDL//Nano with a whole range of advanced additional capabilities to satisfy the growing demand from our OEM customers, all delivered in a similarly compact footprint with lower power requirements, and vastly improved functionality.
Caption Data are committed to continuing to invest in R&D and New Product Development in the future, but expect an increasing amount of the funding for this to be from the growing revenue streams of sales and commercialisation of these existing products.
