| Nevomo | |
| Former Name: | Hyper Poland |
| Industry: | Railway Technology |
| Founded: | in Warsaw, Poland |
| Hq Location City: | Warsaw |
| Hq Location Country: | Poland |
| Products: | MagRail |
| Num Employees: | 53 |
| Num Employees Year: | 2023 |
Nevomo (known as Hyper Poland until 2020) is a Polish transportation start-up founded in 2017. The company proposes a Maglev-based transportation system which can be retrofitted to existing railway tracks, and future work on a Hyperloop system.
Nevomo was founded in April 2017 under its original name Hyper Poland as a spin-off of a team of university students of Warsaw University of Technology. The student team had successfully participated in the Hyperloop Pod Competition II competition organized by SpaceX in California.[1] By the end of 2018, the company had filed eight patent applications. In October 2019, the company unveiled its first 1:5 scale prototype of the track and MagRail vehicle.[2] In 2020, the company begun test runs on a scaled-down track.[3] In the same year, the company rebranded from Hyper Poland to Nevomo.[4]
In the first quarter of 2022, Nevomo completed the construction of Europe's longest test track for passive magnetic levitation. The 700 meter-long railway track in Subcarpathian Voivodeship in Poland allows vehicles utilizing the company's MagRail technology to travel at speeds of up to 160 kph.[5] The installation of all necessary wayside equipment was completed in December 2022 and tests began in spring 2023.[6] The first levitation tests were planned for 2023.
Nevomo is developing a proprietary transport system similar to Maglev, which can be retrofitted onto existing rail infrastructure. The company's core technological focus areas are in the development of a new type of linear motor, the levitation and guidance systems, the power electronics and position control systems, as well as monitoring systems.[7] The company anticipates that a railway track will be first upgraded with the company's MagRail technology, which in a later stage is first enclosed to reduce drag, before finally becoming a full-fledged Hyperloop with a vacuum tube. As the later stages are expected to demand many more years of development before becoming technically and commercially viable, Nevomo is currently focusing on a "MagRail Booster" system intended to magnetically propel existing retrofitted rolling stock, and a full "Levitating MagRail" system which implements Maglev by retrofitting existing train tracks.
The company has secured a grant of PLN 16.5 million from the National Center for Research and Development (NCBiR)[8] and completed two rounds of equity crowdfunding campaigns on Seedrs with PLN 3.7 million.[9] In 2020, the Hütter Private Equity fund from Gdynia, Poland joined the company's investor group.[10]
In mid-2022 Nevomo received funding of €2.5 million from the European Innovation Council (EIC) accelerator program, to be expanded with a campaign component of up to €15 million from the EIC fund.[11] In the same year, EIT InnoEnergy - one of the world's largest investors in sustainable energy innovation - also invested in the company.[12]