Founded by industry veteran Michael Tapia in 1998, Qonnectis has developed a means through which utilities firms can remotely read water, electric and gas meters.

The benefits of automating this process, as Tapia explains, are twofold. Firstly, costs are reduced because utility company’s using the system no longer have to send out employees to read meters manually. Perhaps even more significantly, as Qonnectis’ system takes a reading every 15 minutes and reports back to a central computer once a day, various faults – including gas/water leaks and levels of harmful emissions – can be identified and addressed swiftly, potentially generating huge cost savings for customers.

Targeting the business market only, Qonnectis generated sales of just £25,000 during the nine months to June. But with Tapia claiming that ‘we can save around 5-15 per cent off energy costs for customers with annual bills in excess of £10,000’ and a client list including the likes of the RAF, Scottish Water and Tesco, there are hopes that revenues will now gradually start to grow.

Much of the £1.2 million raised – from predominately private investors – will be used to bolster sales and marketing activity.

UPDATE: Qonnectis is now part of Water Intelligence plc