Camnexus has gone from strength to strength since starting with The St John’s Innovation Centre Projects Team, breaking international barriers, attracting positive publicity and expanding their team both in the UK and South America.

Camnexus is an IoT technology company for water management and environmental monitoring which promotes sustainable development and responsible production and consumption. They bridge the digital divide between inclusive connectivity and low-energy sensing technologies. They aim to lessen the environmental impact of water-use by using real-time data to help manage water resources and measure water quality, use and consumption. Camnexus embrace IoT solutions and make them available both regionally and in productive or industrial sectors that are looking to increase their competitiveness with a responsible and sustainable approach. In the water utility sector, they have provided early-warning systems for water management, including flooding alerts, along with the water supply and distribution system. Dr Jessica Ocampos, the founder, launched Camnexus after graduating with a PhD from Cambridge University, making Cambridge and St John’s Innovation Centre her natural home.

LoRaWAN device with three sensors: water pH, environment temperature, relative humidity, internal temperature of the device

Camnexus have been participants of St John’s Innovation Centre’s support programmes since 2018, receiving coaching on business development and cash-flow modelling, training on go-to-market strategies, how to access internationalisation opportunities, intellectual property support and gaining access to investment readiness training and fundraising support via the Pitchfest programme. Pitchfest is a national training and showcase programme delivered by Enterprise Europe Network and Knowledge Transfer Network and hosted by St John’s Innovation Centre. It selects up to 20 UK-registered SMEs looking to raise funds and takes them through a four-stage process culminating in an opportunity to pitch directly to investors.

In 2019, Camnexus won the Highly Commended Cleantech Company of the Year 2019 prize by the Science and Technology Awards of Cambridge Independent. This year they also secured funding from the Global Challenge Research Fund Demonstrate Impact Fund from Innovate UK, to investigate the feasibility of undertaking a pilot demonstration project of a Real-time Monitoring System of Water Irrigation Quality for smallholder farmers in Brazil. This project has been realised remotely with Camnexus partners in Brazil, successfully engaging with the key stakeholders of the food-producing, water and energy sector in Brazil.

The company had proven such a success that Dr Ocampos was invited to speak at TEDx Leicester where she described how the global challenges can be tackled in a collaborative, inclusive innovation approach, without making a separation between developed and developing countries, “Innovation is not just about technology. It is about people.”

“The business support I have received from my St John’s business adviser has been excellent and it has been really helpful to plan and validate our expansion strategy and with our fundraising. St John’s global reach has been critical to the growth of our company and perfectly aligned with our plans for internationalisation.’’

Working closely with the centre has allowed Camnexus to deliver its LoRa ‘End-to-User’ low power IoT Network to improve the agricultural productivity of Santa Catarina in Brazil using smart farming and precision agriculture technologies. This has allowed the company to expand its already international team strengthening its position in Brazil.

Click here to find out more about Dr Jessica Ocampos and Camnexus.

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