A GROUND-BREAKING digital visualisation company based on Teesside has taken on three staff after securing an investment from UK Steel Enterprise.

Animmersion, set up by Dominic Lusardi and Sam Harrison in 2006, has seen a 50 per cent growth year on year with turnover now heading past £1m and a 19-strong team in place.

The new investment has helped the Middlesbrough-based company to take on project manager Claire Stockton and developers Andrew Wilkin and Michael Taylor with more appointments, especially on the sales side, in the pipeline.

Animmersion is one of the country’s leading designers and suppliers of immersive technologies including virtual reality, augmented reality and holograms alongside more traditional animations, dashboards and apps, specialising in visualisation for scientific and technical products.

It recently launched new products including Deep Frame, manufactured by Realficiotn in Demark that merges the real and virtual world. It is currently attracting considerable media and public attention at the Great Exhibition of the North with displays that include a raptor experience at the Hancock Museum taking viewers back to the prehistoric world.

The company has a growing list of high profile clients across sectors from offshore & subsea, energy, process industries and engineering to construction, defence and retail.

Clients already include Sirius Minerals, South Tees Development Corporation, Huntsman, Edwards Vacuum, Unipres, St John Ambulance and household names in the supermarket and food sectors.

Its interactive training using virtual reality is bringing massive benefits to companies and individuals working in a variety of sectors.

Dominic Lusardi said: “Using virtual reality we can create the hazardous situations that people working in sectors such as offshore, fire safety and with turbines might face and bring a realism to training that is otherwise impossible. It is also very cost-effective for companies.

“Interest in the new products is exceeding our expectations and we are now actively targeting a number of new sectors."

Sarah Thorpe, Area Manager for UK Steel Enterprise, the Tata Steel business-support subsidiary, said: “Animmersion has an impressive team and sound plans for expansion in a sector that is showing great potential. We are pleased to be able to help with funding at an important time for the company and look forward to seeing it go from strength to strength.”