Artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of things (IoT) technology company Homelync moved in to Future Space back in June, having formed at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) Hardware Incubator.
Now heading into their second month with us, we caught up with CEO Luke to find out more about the history of Homelync and what the plans are for the future.
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Homelync started trading in December of 2017 and is a graduate of the BRL’s Hardware Incubator programme. We’re using the latest technologies to make social housing smarter, safer and more efficient.
With social housing accounting for 20% of all housing in the UK, we’re working to address many of the problems faced by social landlords, including making homes more energy efficient, keeping rent affordable and supporting people living in their homes for longer.
Having worked on the implementation of change between customer services and housing repairs in the health and social care sectors of the government, I saw that many of the organisations I was working for were rolling out separate solutions to individual problems, many of which could be joined up.
Although there are many connected solutions helping social landlords tackle these challenges, they don’t all talk to one another and many rely on the tenant’s home internet. Homelync provides an independent gateway for these devices to connect to and presents all this data in one easy place for both the landlords and tenants to access. It also uses clever analytics to generate useful insights.
How was the team established and how big is the company now?
I first met our CTO when he worked as a research engineer for Toshiba; he was a project partner I worked closely with on smart homes. We saw a niche and launched the company.
We then met Adam, our CPO, and Chris our COO, and together formed a well-balanced founding team which I feel has equipped the company with substantial experience, skills and resilience.
Since we started trading in 2017, we spent much of 2018 in development and our growth since then has been phenomenal. We’ve completed a number of pilots, raised funding and we are now scaling with a number of customers whilst carrying out our next round of deployments.
The team has grown from the original four co-founders to 15. We are now in the middle of raising £1.25m and expecting to have a team of 30 within the year.
How has being based at the University Enterprise Zone benefitted Homelync and how are you settling in to Future Space?
Coming from the BRL, which was one our first supporters and gave us a home at an early stage, Future Space has been the perfect next step. The support we gained from the UEZ community helped us accelerate quickly and enabled us to have access to the tools and skills to develop our product and do rapid prototyping.
Having graduated from the BRL Technology Incubator to an office in Future Space a few months ago, we have found there is a lot of support and resources available when you expand from incubator to a scale-up business. As well as the fantastic office space here at the centre, the team also provide you with drop-in sessions, training and networking opportunities. The service they provide is excellent and whether we have events, visitors or special deliveries, they are always on-hand to help.
What’s on the horizon for Homelync for the rest of 2019?
Well, 2019 has gone by very fast so far! Having just moved offices and completed a number of projects and contracts, we are currently in the middle of kicking off a number of new larger deployments across the UK. We have also started recruitment to prepare us for accelerated growth in 2020.
It’s important is that we grow at a sustainable rate ensuring that we keep the excellent reputation we have built with our customers, giving back where we can. Ultimately, we want to make a real difference to people’s lives which means delivering quality.