Imetrum's EIC Accelerator Bridge Monitor Against the Record

Imetrum told the European Union in 2019 that it could watch any bridge, building or wind turbine from a distance, day and night, with a camera mounted on a surveying instrument. The Bristol company was selected in the EIC Accelerator pilot's October 2019 cut-off for blended finance, according to the European Commission's list of selected companies, and signed a grant of €1,071,473 for VG360, a €1,530,675.78 project that ran from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2023, according to CORDIS. The Commission's list names Imetrum as the project's only beneficiary.

Seven years after the award, Imetrum's website sells no structural monitor. Its product pages list Vector, an optical extensometer that measures how test samples stretch in materials-testing machines, plus 3D measurement systems for laboratories and wind tunnels. Since October 2024 the company has been controlled by Tinius Olsen Limited, the British arm of an American maker of testing machines, which holds 75% or more of its shares, according to Companies House.

Where Imetrum Stands Now

Imetrum is active and owned by Tinius Olsen. Companies House records Tinius Olsen Limited as a person with significant control from 29 October 2024, the same day Imetrum issued new shares, according to its filing history. The 2025 group accounts of Tinius Olsen Limited, filed with Imetrum's own, say the group acquired Imetrum in October 2024 and that its revenue rose 16% in 2025 partly because Imetrum's results were included for a full year. The price has not been published.

Imetrum's 2025 accounts show turnover of £1,071,467, up from £933,801 in 2024, and a loss of £2,344,140 after a tax credit. Its directors write that Vector is "starting to see revenue generation but not at the level needed to cover overheads", and that Tinius Olsen's takeover "provides the financial support needed until such time as the business is profitable". The parent's auditor drew attention to the same risk: the value of Tinius Olsen's investment in Imetrum, and the goodwill from buying it, rest on assumptions about the market share of "the recently developed product range". Companies House and The Gazette show no insolvency notice.

The Technology: Measuring by Watching

Imetrum's core skill is digital image correlation: software that tracks patterns in video frames and turns their movement into measurements of displacement, strain or rotation, without touching the object. A 2017 study in Frontiers in Built Environment describes Imetrum as a 2003 University of Bristol spin-out that commercialised the "Video Gauge" software, and reports that its Dynamic Monitoring Station measured the Humber Bridge's deck movement with a cross-correlation of 98.8% against GPS readings. The same paper lists the method's weaknesses: camera movement, changing light and shadows on the targets.

Established structural monitoring wires sensors such as strain gauges, displacement transducers and tilt meters onto the structure, or uses robotic total stations that sight on reflective prisms. VG360 was meant to replace them with a camera fitted to a commercial robotic total station, so that one unit could measure many points from a distance. Imetrum owns the underlying patent family, filed in 2015: US patent 10,598,485 for locating measurement points with a camera and a distance-measuring device was granted on 24 March 2020, followed by a US continuation in April 2021 and a European patent in July 2022.

What VG360 Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

VG360 was Imetrum's second EU grant for the idea. A Phase 1 feasibility study under the SME Instrument, with an EU contribution of €50,000, ran from 1 June to 30 September 2019 and promised to customise VG360 for two robotic total stations, set up a production line and run "a 6-month pilot with three secured civil engineering companies", according to CORDIS. The Accelerator project set three aims: upgrade the core technology and integrate it into Topcon's robotic total stations, run a long-term pilot at different sites, and develop a commercialisation strategy.

The published report, covering April 2021 to March 2023, says the engineering worked. Imetrum moved the software from a PC onto an Nvidia Jetson processor inside a Topcon GT Series total station, with 4G, Bluetooth and a 24-volt supply for solar or wind power, and tested the unit, by then called SH360, at sites in the UK. Everything after the prototype slipped. Topcon stopped making total stations in Europe during the pandemic, so Imetrum signed a manufacturing agreement with Tinius Olsen instead. Lockdowns stopped the planned trials in the Netherlands. Commercial work "was inhibited", the report says, though talks began with the Dutch telecoms company KPN. The project was extended by 12 months, and the report says field tests "will continue beyond the end of the project". No result of those tests, no KPN product and no SH360 launch has been announced since.

1. Upgrade VG360 and integrate it into a Topcon total stationDeliveredJetson-based unit built into a Topcon GT Series instrument, per the CORDIS report.
2. Long-term pilots at different sitesPartlyUK field tests only; Dutch trials dropped because of travel restrictions.
3. Industrial productionPartlyManufacturing agreement with Tinius Olsen; no production run reported.
4. Market launch of the structural monitorNot achievedNo SH360 or VG360 product on Imetrum's site or announced by any partner.
5. Pilot with three civil engineering companies (Phase 1 plan)Not achievedNo pilot customer or result named in any public source.

The prototype is a real engineering result, and the pandemic hit both the supply chain and the trials. But the grant was for taking a monitor to market, and nothing public shows that it got there. Imetrum's 2022 website listed a "vision-based total station" and a "civil structure monitoring array" under active developments, not products. Today a category page for its Dynamic Monitoring Station remains on the site with no articles in it.

The Pivot to Materials Testing

The company's attention moved to laboratories while VG360 was still running. On 2 December 2021 Imetrum announced that Tinius Olsen had "acquired a share in the Imetrum business" to develop a new generation of extensometers, according to an archived company announcement quoting chief executive Lee Fenney. David Wheeler, whose service address is Tinius Olsen's site in Redhill, joined the board in May 2022, when Imetrum issued shares for £1,014,000, according to its officer list and 2022 accounts. Those accounts say all spending was focused on Vector, and that Imetrum had signed distribution and manufacturing agreements with Tinius Olsen.

Vector is now sold in three versions, with gauge lengths from 7.5 mm to 180 mm. Imetrum's product page gives its accuracy as ISO 9513 Class 0.5 and ASTM E83 Class B-1, while its Made in Britain listing says ISO 9513 Class 0.2, a stricter class; the two sources disagree. Imetrum has announced distributors including Universal Grip Co. in the US, Cal-Rite, Hoytom and BTE Equipment, and Tinius Olsen GmbH as exclusive German distributor of its 3D systems, according to its press page. Tinius Olsen sells Vector under its own brand, as on its Vector B80 page.

The Money

Imetrum made a profit of £17,118 in 2019, the year it applied, and had net assets of £478,030, according to its 2019 accounts. It has lost money every year since. The 2020 accounts record a £725,886 loss, a pandemic downturn, a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan, "EU grant funding" and an Innovation Continuity Loan; Innovate UK Loans Limited registered a charge over the company in March 2021, according to Companies House.

From 2022 Tinius Olsen became the lender. Imetrum's 2023 accounts list a £1,500,000 loan from Tinius Olsen plus a further £1,940,000 lent that year, and say the directors were discussing a sale of 100% of the shares to Tinius Olsen. By the end of 2025, loans due after more than one year stood at £8,406,430 and net liabilities at £8,913,249, according to the 2025 accounts. Average staff fell from 29 in 2021 to 23 in both 2024 and 2025.

Why Europe Should Care

Ageing bridges are a European problem. The Commission's Joint Research Centre published a 2019 report on bridge maintenance, inspection and monitoring to assess how research can keep ageing transport infrastructure safe, and the VG360 proposal on CORDIS opened with the 2018 collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa, which killed 43 people. Cheap, remote and continuous monitoring is the kind of tool that agenda needs.

The EU money did not produce that tool on the market. The technology it helped develop now sits in a British subsidiary of an American group, whose 2025 accounts name Tinius Olsen International Company of the United States as ultimate parent and source of financial support, and the company's products serve materials laboratories rather than infrastructure owners.

The Verdict

Imetrum and Tinius Olsen have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.