Black Country manufacturer secures £1.8m investment

Left - Giovanni Finocchio, investment director, Midven Centre - Simon Price, managing director, CFP Composites Right - Sean Hutchinson, senior manager, VC Solutions, British Business Bank

CFP Composites, a manufacturer of ultra-lightweight and cost-efficient heat resistant materials used to replace heavy metal parts in a range of applications, has secured a £1.8m funding round to bring its next-generation carbon fibre panels to market.

Venture capital firm Midven announced a £750,000 investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), alongside a further £1,078,000 from private investor network Growthdeck.

The Dudley-based firm has developed a time-and cost-efficient automated process which produces zero waste and provides a 50%reduction in costs compared to current processes.

Unlike any other form of carbon fibre, its finished panels are heat resistant to 1,500 degrees centigrade for up to four hours. It is this feature, combined with the panels ultra-light weight, that is driving substantial end user demand across a range of industries including aeronautical, rail and energy.

CFP will use the new funding to accelerate sales and marketing activity across these sectors.

Simon Price, managing director at CFP Composites, said: “We are excited and privileged to have received this investment from both Midven and Growthdeck. This will have a vast impact on the business, allowing us to both expand in employee size and give us continuing capacity to create ground-breaking products.”

Surjit Kooner, director at Midven, said: “We believe CFP is a true Midlands engineering success story and Midven is excited to support them in its growth. The company has developed an innovative range of carbon fibre products based on a revolutionary production process. CFP’s lightweight materials combined with fire resistance capabilities offers customers a significantly improved performance at substantially lower lifetime costs.”

Simon Emary, head of investment at Growthdeck, added: “As soon as I visited the firm’s West Midlands production facility, I could see CFP has the potential to take a great British engineering innovation to a truly global market. Our investors obviously agreed, pledging over £1m in record time.”

 

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