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Stuart Garfield
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Pitch
QM Power ready to shift magnetic tech from R&D to production
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QM Power Inc.
Headquarters: Boston
Web: www.qmpower.com
Email: pjpiper@qmpower.com
Founded: 2006
Employees: 6
The Pitch: QM Power is looking for $5 million to $10 million to begin commercial production of electric motors using parallel path magnetic technology.
QM Power makes electric motors, generators and actuators that use technology it calls “Parallel Path Magnetic Technology,” featuring magnetic circuits. According to the company, the technology is intended to improve power density and reliability, run cooler, weigh less, cost less and operate more efficiently over a wider power range than existing AC or DC electric motors, generators and actuators. The motors appear similar to other motors, but are smaller and have a different internal geometry, according to CEO PJ Piper.
The company, which Piper said is profitable, is working under several grants from federal agencies. QM is involved with a $500,000 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act project to improve wind turbine efficiency by 10 percent. The startup is also working to increase the efficiency of electric vehicles and HVAC systems under a $500,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Science Foundation. QM Power is reducing the weight of motors and actuators by 20 percent under a $100,000 SBIR grant and is doing the same for medical actuators under another $100,000 SBIR grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.
The company’s technology was developed by QM Power’s chief technology officer, Joe Flynn, who is based in Kansas City, where QM Power is partnered with the University of Missouri. QM Power is looking for $5 million to $10 million in Series B funding to commercialize its technology, Piper said, and also recently hired a COO, John Lebo, formerly of Black & Decker, Johnson Electric and Ametek Inc.
“We’re moving now from a stage where we’ve finished research and development and prototyping and going into 2010 looking to start production,” Piper said.
Piper said there is a $1 trillion installed base of products that could be improved by QM Power technology, and he estimates a market potential of about $70 billion per year.
Piper said people tend to think that electric motors are 80 percent to 90 percent efficient — so what’s the point of making them more efficient? But that efficiency figure only comes at one point in a motor’s function, when inertia is doing some of the work. The 90 percent figure is akin to saying a Subaru gets 200 mpg, he said: “I could actually prove it if I’m going down a very steep hill,” he said.
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