Newcastle cleantech Kinewell opens new office and hires five after £1m-plus funding

Kinewell, the British cleantech scaleup whose software has been used to optimise the design of offshore windfarms around the world, has opened a new office and created five jobs after raising more than £1m in investment.

The company has moved its head office to a building at Newcastle Helix. The £350m development in Newcastle city centre has 11 buildings bringing together industry leaders, businesses and leading researchers in an innovation cluster.

The five jobs reflect growing demand for the company’s software, and Kinewell hopes the new headquarters will give it room to keep adding to its team in 2027.

Kinewell Energy founder and chief executive Dr Andrew Jenkins said: “We are thrilled to welcome our new members to the team and to have joined the fantastic business community at Newcastle Helix.

He added that the move puts the business “right at the heart of one of the North East’s largest innovation hubs and will be key to enabling us to attract and retain the best talent as we continue to grow.”

The new team members are Dr Tim Whitbread, modelling and optimisation specialist; Hannah Smiles, business development manager; Muhammad Bilal Akbar, full stack software developer; Jagoda Waszkowiak, marketing coordinator; and Tejjus Bhat, research and development engineer.

The office move and hires cap a busy year for Kinewell. It has acquired ForeCoast Marine and strengthened its board with two industry veterans, fractional CFO Craig Lilford and former Sage software chief David Pinches. It also received the King’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade.

“The new office and hires demonstrate the investment we secured earlier this year really being put to good use,” Jenkins said.

He said the money was funding a bigger technical team to speed up product development, along with a commercial team to market and sell the software worldwide, with the aim of growing revenue while making offshore wind deployment faster and less risky.

“The optimisation solutions we have developed may be rooted in offshore wind, however we are increasingly looking at how our technology can also be used to overcome challenges in other sectors, and our new recruits will play a key role in overseeing this diversification,” he added. “We are delighted to have them on board.”