Sheffeild’s FourJaw unlocks £1 million to develop data analytics tools for small manufacturers

Sheffield-based digital manufacturing platform FourJaw has secured £1 million in funding from the U.K. investor community, such as North Invest and SFC Capital and a grant from Innovate UK. The fresh capital will enable the company to accelerate its growth and support high-value-added manufacturers across the U.K. 

Dubbed as a fitness watch for the manufacturing machinery, the startup’s digital platform is designed to work on every machine, from legacy manual lathes through to state-of-the-art machining centres. According to the company, the tool provides manufacturers with accurate and up-to-date information that enables the entire production team to work together to accurately time job durations, maximise uptime, unblock bottlenecks, and increase productivity.

The platform is now being deployed across the U.K. to precision engineering supply chains serving high-value manufacturing sectors, including aerospace, energy (oil, gas, civil nuclear, and renewables), medical, defence, automotive, motorsport, machine knives, and consumer goods.

Chris Iveson, co-founder and CEO, FourJaw said: “We aim to bring affordable, quick-to-install data analytics to the precision engineering sector, which is vital to building a more competitive U.K. economy. This new round empowers us to strengthen our team, accelerate growth, and deliver our product roadmap as we forge ahead on our journey to change the world of manufacturing productivity.”

Stephen Page, CEO, SFC Capital, added: “We knew FourJaw had created a game-changing technology that would break through the sector’s scepticism surrounding Industry 4.0. Their data-driven technology is right for its time, helping drive a manufacturing renaissance for post-Brexit, post-COVID Britain where productivity and competitiveness are essential to the economy.”

Bart Simpson, chairman, FourJaw and former senior operations director, Autodesk, concluded: “It’s great to see investors providing sustained finance for a technology that is changing the face of precision engineering in the U.K. FourJaw has created a beautifully simple tool that is affordable, adaptable, and accessible to the vast majority of machining shop floors in the U.K. It sidesteps the costly and invasive big-ticket alternatives, to deliver the right information at the right time, securely from the cloud. A tablet gives staff operatives and managers easy-to-digest data that is driving big improvements in productivity, thus securing U.K. jobs and international markets against fierce global competition.”