Interface Fluidics: Miniaturizing the measurement game
You often hear that something has to be 10 times faster and 10 times cheaper to be considered a disruptive technology. Calgary-based Interface Fluidics has done that with as many as 10 different fluid measurement technologies where, depending on the test involved, they’re actually 100 or even 1,000 times faster – and much safer, too. That’s a lot of disruption.
Stuart Kinnear, CEO, Interface Fluidics
By making extreme-condition fluid measurement and analysis quick, accurate and accessible, Interface Fluidics is transforming how energy companies make critical business decisions.
Like many Calgary companies, Interface Fluidics, is using data to start, grow and thrive as part of a collaborative business environment that’s solving global challenges. In fact, enabling businesses to experiment, innovate and make data-driven decisions is a priority in the economic strategy, Calgary in the New Economy.
Their bottom line: knowing how reservoir fluids behave helps energy companies develop their resources responsibly and improve their financial and environmental performance.
As Stuart Kinnear, CEO, says: “When you're talking about billions of dollars of investment, the ability of these measurements to speed up the process and get investments made sooner is immensely important.”
A MADE IN CALGARY GLOBAL LEADER
Traditionally, business-critical oil and gas fluid analysis is expensive, can take up to a year to complete, and requires the transport and use of large quantities of volatile sample materials.
“At Interface Fluidics, we’re the global leader in making extreme condition fluid analysis truly accessible for the global energy industry. And that means making the process fast, inexpensive and accurate.”
Interface Fluidics’s business model integrates proprietary technology, which sets the company apart in the industry. The company analyzes microfluidic data through processes developed with specially designed hardware, software and machine vision technology.
Interface Fluidics’ breakthrough platform, SapphireLab, is the world’s first microfluidic system that simplifies data collection in high-pressure and high-temperature conditions. SapphireLab is a single hardware and software platform that performs multiple vital measurements – all on a single piece of equipment the size of a washing machine.
“We’ve taken many different pieces of technology from a traditional oilfield lab and put it onto one device,” said Kinnear.
With Interface Fluidics, clients get the information they want quickly, inexpensively, accurately and on-site.
“There’s a vibrant community of diverse founders thinking about diverse problems in Calgary – they’re world-class companies and world-class people.”
WHY CALGARY
Known as a top location to make a living and a life, Calgary’s growing innovation ecosystem is rising on the world stage with a collaborative tech community that supports innovators across diverse sectors.
Interface Fluidics was a participant in one of the many business accelerator programs in the city, the Creative Destruction Lab-Rockies (CDL-Rockies) in 2017. CDL-Rockies, an incubator and accelerator, received funding from Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund to support the rapid commercialization of startups in the innovation ecosystem.
With access to mentorship, resources and capital, Interface Fluidics was locally prepared to provide a solution to a global challenge.
“It exposed us to local investors and local ways of thinking. CDL-Rockies gave us good exposure and we met great companies there. But for me, the biggest impact was meeting other founders,” said Kinnear.
“There’s a vibrant community of diverse founders thinking about diverse problems in Calgary – they're world-class companies and world-class people.”
Kinnear is a firm believer in the power of accelerators and has attended several, including the highly prestigious Techstars Energy Accelerator in Norway.
“When Calgary companies get accepted into these world-class accelerators, we come back with a global perspective. In fact, Calgary is a great place to run a business that is global.”
Canadians are not only well-liked with a positive international reputation, but are held in high regard, especially in the energy industry.
Technology from Calgary has fundamentally changed the world in the past and it is positioned to do so in the future.
The city has an extensive support system built around the entire energy industry – not just oil and gas – which gives startups access to prototyping products, and skilled talent (hardware and software engineers and coders).
The pool of talent and experience here means that companies can build and sustain a world-class, category-leading organization.
“When Calgary companies get accepted into these world-class accelerators, we come back with a global perspective. In fact, Calgary is a great place to run a business that is global.”
LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES FOR DIVERSE SKILLSETS
Although he is the CEO of a global technology company, Kinnear himself was trained as a musician. “You don't have to have a specific skill set to work in a startup,” he said. “Skill sets aren’t a hard and fast set of rules for what you can and can't do. The ability to think critically is all that matters.”
At Interface Fluidics, an astrophysicist is building machine learning code for microfluidics. A materials science engineer is writing hardware integration software.
“We value the people that can work in a complex, ever-changing environment and have the ability to think in the long term. There's opportunities for any field, I think, at Interface,” said Kinnear.
As a small company that's moving quickly, Interface Fluidics doesn’t often hire specific people for specific jobs. Rather, Kinnear looks for employees who can anticipate the long-term complexities of actions taken today – something he calls “the possibility space.”
“People who can work well within this possibility space keep as many doors open as possible and can think two or three years down the road, while also making clear, concise progress in the short term. That's not an easy ask. Most jobs don't ask you to do that.”
REAL-WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL STAKES
The team at Interface Fluidics is focused on adding services for companies transitioning to net-zero.
They’ve recently partnered with Alberta Innovates and Enhance Energy, a Calgary-based carbon management company, whose mission is to reduce the carbon intensity of consumer products, energy, and materials by developing carbon capture and storage. The three organizations are engaged in a significant study to show how new testing techniques can support low-carbon energy production and reservoir management.
Interface Fluidics is also focused on educating the public, by making safe and effective carbon sequestration better understood. When it comes to putting CO2 captured from the air underground, most people assume that it will behave in the same way oil and gas systems behave. That’s a huge assumption.
“Alberta has gigantic opportunities for carbon sequestration thanks to an abundance of played out oilfields. But in order to responsibly inject CO2 into the empty pore spaces [microscopic spaces between particles of rock or sand] left when oil and gas are extracted, you have to understand what's going to happen before you start,” said Kinnear.
“We have the ability to de-risk carbon injection before you actually go to the field.”
WHAT’S NEXT
“Our raison d'etre at Interface is making high-pressure, high-temperature, microfluidics accessible,” said Kinnear.
“Accessibility is a mindset with which we approach everything we do.”
According to Kinnear, accessibility and diversity are two sides of the same coin; if you make something more accessible, more people from different backgrounds can think about it and come up with new solutions.
Kinnear believes that taking a diversity and accessibility-first approach to technology development will support Interface Fluidics’ path to become the world leader in their technology space.
“In the next few years, we aim to take our hypercomplex technology and turn it into this industry’s version of a smartphone – a single technology platform on which all of our measurements run.”
While Interface Fluidics digs deep to support sustainable energy production, the company has its sights set high for its continued global growth from Calgary.
Are you ready to make moves in Calgary’s tech scene, working with forward-thinking companies like Interface Fluidics? Head to our Live Tech Love Life careers page and see what opportunities might be out there for you.