BDN
Architecture and civil engineering firm Building Design Northern (BDN) is driving forward visionary changes in the North East, as well as within its own business. The company, a specialist in renovation work, has been thriving since it was bought out by MD Richard Marsden in 2019 – 13 years after he started his career as an undergraduate with the business – moving operations from Durham to Sunderland, where BDN regenerated a derelict school to turn it into the company’s headquarters.
BDN’s expanding team is the driving force behind Sheepfolds’ Stables, a £2m project to turn the Grade II-listed building into a drinking, dining and entertainment venue, helping to attract a growing list of hospitality names, including Hairy Biker Si King. Next year will see the Sunderland project and several others progress at pace, including work to expand its own footprint through the conversion of former police buildings in Ulverston into an expanding North West base, commercial space, offices, boutique serviced accommodation and new homes.
Pneuma Group
The team behind the hugely-successful gaming company Double Eleven launched Pneuma Group at the end of 2022, taking its name from an ancient Greek word for ‘breath’ – which it says perfectly describes its mission “to breathe life and soul into the area and be a lasting part of a positive legacy”. Set up to invest in places and businesses to safeguard and boost the impact of Double Eleven, the firm is aiming to making a number of targeted investments and acquisitions across the region in the future, a strategy which started with the recent acquisition of the Six restaurant at Baltic in Gateshead.
With a range of companies under its umbrella – Pneuma Hospitality Group, Pneuma Property Group, Pneuma Residential Properties, Pneuma Commercial Cleaning and Pneuma Commercial Security – we will follow the group’s next moves with interest.
DEScycle
DEScycle describes itself as a ‘deep tech’ company on a path to end pollution and toxicity in the metals industry. The University of Leicester spin-out has chosen Wilton on Teesside as the site for its first demonstrator plant that will showcase its metal recovery and recycling method that uses Deep Eutectic Solvents.
DEScycle’s innovation means recycling of ‘e-waste’ – that includes electronic items such as mobile phones and laptops – can take place at much lower temperatures via a process that is less energy intensive. This year, lab-based trials at CPI’s North East facilities proved the efficacy of the process which can retrieve metals such as gold, silver, palladium and copper.
The tests took DEScycle to Technology Readiness Level 6 – the step before commercialisation – which the firm hopes to kick off this year with an initial £8.05m plant in Gateshead. The facility is a joint effort with Tyneside’s GAP Group – a partnership which both firms hope will result in a second commercial plant outside of the North East.
Discussions are said to be under way about expansion overseas in countries such as the US, Vietnam and Australia and in April the firm closed a pre-Series A funding round with a £4.9m sum.
3D Bio Tissues
Scientists at Newcastle-based 3D Bio Tissues (3DBT) made the first ever 100% pork steak from lab-grown meat last year. The tissue engineering pioneers have developed a patented, serum-free and animal-free cell booster called City-mixTM.
The supplement represents a step forward in cultivated tissue as it does not require blends or fillers, meaning the result is 100% meat. Tissue structure is incredibly complex and getting it right means lab-grown ‘cultivated’ meat can have the right texture, bite and feel in the mouth, as well as looking the part on the plate.
The Newcastle University spin-out has been drumming up interest in the US this year, having opened a base in Hong Kong with an eye on the Asian market. This year it has raised £2.9m in an oversubscribed capital raise and was awarded €612,000 European Institute of Innovation and Technology to further develop the City-Mix product.
And it’s not just the food market that the start-up is looking to disrupt. In the autumn, the team launched a separate company to capitalise on successes it has had with lab grown corneas – the outer layer of the eye.
FAB Bakery
Food critic Grace Dent is among those to have fallen for Newcastle’s FAB Bakery, saying that its almond croissants are “maybe the North East’s greatest”. Owner Shynara Bakisheva opened the first FAB – it stands for Fresh Artisan Bread – in Fenham in Newcastle’s West End, in 2020 when Covid lockdowns led to the company’s wholesale customers closing their doors for months on end.
Ms Bakisheva grew up in Kazakhstan and had worked as a Russian-English interpreter before meeting her husband, moving to the UK and retraining as an artisan baker. She initially set up a wholesale bakery in Wallsend but the switch to retail has paid off. The success of the first shop on Fenham Hall Drive has since been replicated across the city in Gosforth, with a second site opening on Ashburton Road in 2023.
