City briefs: Getech; WANdisco; and more

Getech, a geoenergy and green hydrogen company, has outlined how it is has repositioned its business model to support the drive towards decarbonisation, following receipt of £6.25m of equity proceeds in April 2021.

The Leeds-based business has expanded application of its geoscience and data products into essential tools for locating and developing new geothermal, critical minerals, carbon/energy storage and green hydrogen projects.

It has also invested in fresh expertise for its team, acquired a green hydrogen development company, and secured the first two development projects in Shoreham and Inverness.

In a trading update released today, the business says its strong performance in FY2021 has continued into FY2022.

FY2021 revenue from geoenergy products and services rose about 20% to £4.3m (2020: £3.6m), in line with market expectations;

The company’s order book grew by 25% to £3.3m at 31 December 2021 (31 December 2020: £2.7m).

Chief executive officer, Dr Jonathan Copus, said: “It is clear the world needs to substantially increase energy investment to meet the goals of energy security and transition to a low carbon future. 

“In 2022, fuelled by growth in company and government spend, energy investment could total as much as 13% of global GDP, the highest level on record.

“Getech is ideally positioned to support this ‘waterfront’ expansion in energy capital spending.

“By investing in our unique geoscience data and software products, we are extending their application to high-growth geoenergy sectors beyond petroleum – targeting geothermal, critical minerals, hydrogen and carbon storage.”

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David Richards

Sheffield-headquartered live data company, WANdisco, has signed a contract worth $720,000/£551,000 with a top 10 global retailer.

Using its LiveData Migrator (LDM) solution, WANdisco will create a new, focused environment for machine learning and other analytical workloads.

It will support the customer by helping to move a subset of data from its existing Hadoop environment to a new storage layer in the cloud, while also supporting the continuous replication of any ongoing changes to this data.

WANdisco says it was chosen by the customer – an existing client of three years – for its ability to continuously move data to where it is needed at the right time, across multiple distributed on-premises environments, edge platforms or public clouds.

David Richards, CEO, said: “It is incredibly pleasing to see WANdisco continue to deliver new value through existing customer relationships in providing solutions that not only meet, but exceed business use case needs and requirements.

“Our talented people and critical solutions such as LiveData Migrator, have led the customer to view us as a trusted implementation and solutions architect partner, and we look forward to seeing this relationship go from strength to strength.”

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Sheffield-based house builder, MJ Gleeson, has signed a pledge to help protect leaseholders from the costs of fire safety remediation works.

It follows discussions with the Government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

The DLUHC had requested 53 companies in the sector, including MJ Gleeson, sign the pledge confirming they will take responsibility for performing or funding mitigation works to address life-critical fire-safety issues on buildings over 11 metres in which the company had involvement in developing.

MJ Gleeson says it was involved in the development of 15 buildings over 11 metres, before exiting from this legacy businesses and dedicating itself to low-cost housebuilding and land promotion.

It notes is not aware of any material fire-safety issues in respect of the 15 buildings it was involved in, but will conduct a further assessment of each of these properties to check this remains the case.

James Thomson, chief executive, said: “Leaseholders should not have to pay for any costs associated with life-critical fire-safety issues and I support the Government’s efforts to engage the wider industry in remediating buildings made unsafe by life-critical fire-safety issues.

“The housebuilding sector has responded positively to this initiative and is playing a proactive role and at significant cost. 

“We will continue to work constructively with DLUHC and the wider sector to ensure this issue is resolved expeditiously.”