Flusso ramping up as team and lab space expands
Flusso is undergoing a major expansion of its Cambridge-based technical team and offices as it ramps up its new flow and gas sensor R&D activities.
The investment is the first phase of an ambitious ambitious growth plan by the company’s new owners following its acquisition in August 2022.
Flusso was spun out of Cambridge University’s Department of Engineering in 2016, with support from Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialisation arm. The flow sensor company was co-founded by Prof Florin Udrea, Prof Julian Gardner, Dr John Coull and Dr Andrea De Luca: all are sensor experts with semiconductor industry experience.
The company raised £4.65million in a Series A round in June 2020 led by Parkwalk Advisors. Flusso launched its first product, the FLS110, the world’s smallest flow sensor, that year.
The purchase of the fabless semiconductor company by Shanghai Sierchi Enterprise Management Partnership for £28m last year was cleared by the UK government after it emerged that Sierchi is owned by Zhenxin Equity Investment Partnership, which is backed by the Chinese state.
The expansion at the company’s Cowley Road base will see Flusso create 10 further engineering and operational roles this year, on top of eight new positions already added at its Cambridge offices in recent months.
The company is also leasing a further 2,000 sq ft within its existing building, effectively doubling its mixed office and laboratory space, and is investing in additional specialist test equipment to bring previously outsourced product testing activities in-house.
Flusso’s much larger office space will enable the company to accommodate its fast-growing headcount, as well as new facilities including two fully-customised sensor development and test laboratories, more meeting rooms and a dedicated video conferencing suite. The new labs will be kitted out with equipment such as multiple temperature and humidity-controlled test chambers, and a desktop wind tunnel for use in developing, characterising and validating the performance of new flow sensor innovations.
In addition, the company has recently been awarded ISO 14001:2015 certification for its environmental management system and is now working on a plan to achieve carbon neutrality for its buildings and staff travel as soon as possible.
Andrea De Luca, CEO at Flusso, said: “Flusso’s ambitious expansion plan will more than double the size of our technical team compared with last year, and will help accelerate the commercialisation of our flow and gas sensor product lines.
“We’ve recently added some critical new capabilities to our Cambridge team but are looking to bolster it further with additional skills in areas such as application engineering, firmware and software engineering, data science, materials and product quality.”
Flusso’s new desktop wind tunnel will enable the company to further expand its own testing capabilities and to bring a previously outsourced product testing activity in-house.
