On Billionaires' Row: Monumo cashing in on VC and global client engagement

Equally importantly, Monumo has started persuading major customer/collaborators to inject capital into the young business. 

Pretty soon we could start regaling a dual diamond: A market-leading engineering company in the sector with a major presence in Coventry and a cutting-edge tech influencer with its heartbeat in Cambridge.

Monumo, Business Weekly’s 2023 Technology Scale-Up champion – has climbed several plateaus of its own personal Everest with modest resources but immense belief regarding its potential. The management hierarchy  including founder and CEO Dominic Vergine (ex-Arm), CTO Jaroslaw Rzepecki (formerly Siemens and Microsoft) and CCO Michael Horne (ex-Arm) give the top team a West Coast-style pulse.

Vergine doesn't regret any of the many sleepless nights across the journey and can honestly say he has never seriously doubted the core technology. He swiftly adds he is nevertheless thrilled that he has helped lead Monumo across the perceived Vally of Death into more fertile territory that may yet prove to be the promised land.

Commercial traction has been a while in coming but when international customers in Asia and Europe decided they wanted to buy into the technology Vergine knew Monumo had started to click into top gear. He has seen interest in the business model rocket in territories like Japan where they know a thing or two about automotive engineering.

His heart has further been warmed by the expansion of potential sectors in which the core technology can now succeed - not least white goods, drones, areas of 3D, turbines, industrial motors and even robotics. From drones to washing machines, that's quite a move of the dial for Monumo.

Monumo has just announced the commercial breakthrough reflected through successfully delivering for multiple international companies. This progress signals a critical tipping point for Monumo as its technology has now been proven to deliver superior, low-cost motor designs in record time. The speed element of commercialisation is critical for customers racing against a variety of clocks.

Monumo's technology is the Anser® Engine. It can create large numbers of detailed motor designs that have been optimised at a system level, within just a few days. This is beyond the capability of any other commercially available process available today and gives partners a unique competitive advantage in agility, product performance and cost-reduction.

In one recent project Monumo evaluated around 3,000,000 designs in just three days. This technological advancement in AI and ML is driving interest from a growing roster of global clients, including multiple top automotive players across Europe and Asia.

In another project, the Anser Engine has revealed up to a 17 per cent cost reduction over the customer’s original electric motor design, enabling savings of up to €70 per motor. McKinsey currently predicts that the 10 largest automotive OEMs will require 120 new eMotor designs across new EV platforms in the next decade, with total lifetime volumes projected to reach 190 million units, demonstrating significant potential industry cost savings. 

“A year ago, we were proving the commercial viability of our technology," says Vergine. “Today, we are delivering quantifiable value and a clear ROI with one contract moving from a pilot to a multi-million dollar, multi-year engagement in just 10 months. 

“What started with electric motors for EVs is quickly expanding to other industries like energy generation, white goods, aerospace and additive manufacturing. This success proves the breadth and power of our Anser Engine technology. 

"We've achieved product-market fit well ahead of schedule, our first two major customers have both expressed an interest in investing at the next round and we are now in active discussions with venture capital funds that recognise the immense value and scalability of our technology.”

Vergine swiftly adds that this spurt of success does not make Monumo the finished global article but says it is almost there. Monumo had revenue of just £100k in 2024 and Vergine says it still has much to do but a stream of recent successes has changed the landscape.

As the young business seeks to scale both in Coventry on the engineering side and via Cambridge with cerebral AI plays, Vergine has the sense to realise that standing on the threshold of a dream has, for him, arrived in what he describes as the nick of time. A lot of great ideas fall by the wayside through lack of luck, money or momentum - sometimes a mix of them all. 

Vergine has never doubted the power of Monumo's core proposition. Now he wants the world to share in what he always felt was possible to achieve.