Company
A Deep Tech Company driven by Beauty. In the aesthetic of the unique landscape surrounding our places, in the elegance of models’ analytical equations reproducing physics, in the silent armony of people finding their common rhythm, sharing their perspective view.
MegaRide
MegaRide, the island from which the ancient city of NeaPolis arose, the starting point. MegaRide, a smart approach to vehicle and transportation development, a new starting point for our land’s growth.
The activities of the Vehicle Dynamics UniNa research group led in the last decade to the realization of software products, testing procedures and development tools able to satisfy the needs of research partners from several areas of expertise in motorsport. In 2015 the described activities received an important feedback from the scientific community and the automotive market. Pushed by such achievements, the foundation of MegaRide University spin-off project was planned with the aim to provide a direct link with the users of the developed tools, by means of which operating with gaze focused on the future of research in mobility field. The company headquarter was set in the Mechanics building of the Department of Industrial Engineering, where the RACEarch LAB is located, in order optimize the information transfer and the logistics operations between the two institutions. A second office was then opened in Campania New Steel incubator.
In its 7 years of life, MegaRide became a techtransfer holding group, interacting with several teams in Formula 1, Formula E, MotoGP, NASCAR and in other categories, before finally moving towards industrial applications.
BUILDING A TECH ECOSYSTEM
TIMELINE
In seven years, MegaRide nowadays emerges as a technology holding company. The creation of a third company RIDEsense, with plans to create a fourth, will contribute to MegaRide’s technological leadership. Active involvement in European initiatives such as Sure 5.0, demonstrates MegaRide’s dedication to the transition to Industry 5.0, where the humancentric view of the enterprise is combined with the increasing number of PhDs and the interest in investing in the next generation of automotive professionals. MegaRide’s strategic growth, new RIDEsense initiatives, and involvement in key projects indicate a strong trajectory in establishing its role as a leader in the evolving technology and industry landscape also throught 2024.
A recognition that is not limited to turnover growth, but has a deeper meaning for the group. An award that talks about the impact on people, on our community and our commitment to positive change. This, for MegaRide, has been a three-year period of particular dedication to the consolidation of market positions and the technological platform. Three years of increase in people, growing turnover and continuous development of new market trajectories.
The fifth season of MegaRide in Formula 3 ends in the best possible way… Bortoleto champion! A great joint effort, and the possibility to build, side by side with our partner, a simulative infrastructure adopted for vehicle dynamics analysis and predictions throughout the whole Championship. MegaRide is proud to be chosen at the beginning of this winning path by Trident team, which since the half of 2019 decided to rely on MegaRide technologies, adopting the RIDEsuite tire modules in a wide range of track and engineering activities.
Six years after its foundation, MegaRide is now a small holding company with an international reputation, with customers ranging from Formula 1 to MotoGP, from the most important tire and car manufacturers to the new players in autonomous driving. MegaRide succeeds in investing in a new generation of automotive professionals, which now has 35 people, and in creating a group capable of generating a total turnover of 3 million €
MP Motorsport dominates the FIA F2 world championship and conquers the 2022 title in the year of the start of the collaboration with MegaRide, specialized in the optimization of tire-vehicle interaction and in maximizing performance. The heart of the support provided by MegaRide to the MP Motorsport team is in the preparation work for the race weekends, thanks to simulations, performed with predictive models, which identify the target operating temperature of the tires and the optimal camber to maximize grip and identify the best preparation procedure.
In the unprecedented setting of Pietrasanta, the cradle of Barsanti and Matteucci, fathers of the internal combustion engine, now home to a twenty-year International Award, MegaRide is alongside Maserati to represent Italian automotive innovation in the world. “Among the companies evaluated, MegaRide prevailed, born 6 years ago from the research activities of the Vehicle Dynamics group of the University of Naples Federico II, which soon became an international holding company, with customers from Formula 1 to MotoGP, from tire manufacturers to the new players of autonomous driving.”
VESevo Generation 2 is characterized by a new ergonomic and attractive design, increased portability, embedded hardware and firmware and the possibility to choose between two different software to conduct multiple tests: a full tire tread viscoelastic characterization or fast checks on track, in road tests or on the production line for quality assessment.
MegaRide expands and completes its line-up of proprietary solutions for the tire and automotive industry, thanks to the acquisition of tire wear and integrity monitoring systems developed by Wriggle Solutions. As expert in developing innovative enhancements and features for the tire industry, Wriggle Solutions has produced a novel system that helps to monitor tire wear in real time, to report damage, and to advise tire need to be replaced.
The VESevo innovative system for tire analysis wins the prestigious Automotive Testing Technology International Award. VESevo was awarded with the coveted recognition in a fierce competition with some giants of automotive research such as Volvo, CSM, Messring and AB Dynamics “for its innovativeness – underlined the jurors – in a sector such as that of tires which represents a frontier for simulations and for sustainable development of the entire automotive sector.”
The technology partnership between MegaRide and Trident Motorsport has proven itself as an extremely valuable asset for the Milan-based team in its effort to secure the Team Champions title in the 2021 FIA Formula 3 Championship. The goal of the relationship, involving two companies with a winning DNA, is to maximize performance and results achieved on track. MegaRide supports the team supplying simulation tools from its “RIDEsuite” platform, offering the capability to expand the vehicle/tire development programs with the full implementation of specific physical factors.
During seasonal pre-tests, Formula 1 teams were spotted using an innovative Italian “gun”. VESevo, the exclusive system developed by the Vehicle Dynamics group of the Federico II University of Naples in collaboration with the academic spin-off MegaRide, has become a point of reference for the teams of all the main motorsport competitions. In less than a year, the device has been adopted by 5 of the 10 Formula 1 teams, 4 Formula E teams, 2 MotoGP teams, by the majority of the teams in the WRC and in many other racing categories.
MegaRide team engineered a set of simulation tools, merged in the “RIDEsuite”, capable of simplifying the multi-objective identification process, leading to shorter development schedules, even with the full implementation of multiple and interconnected dependencies. RIDEsuite comprises four physical submodels, able to simulate in detail the physical effects characterizing a vehicle interacting with the external environment.
MegaRide is proclaimed winner of the 2020 edition of the Italian Master Startup Award, an event born in 2007, which rewards the national winners of the StartCup and of the PNI (National Prize of Innovation), paying particular attention to the solidity that the projects show in terms of revenues and technologies, 4/5 years after their start.
The growth of team and turnover are two key indicators for the development of a business project. In less than 4 years, with no debt or equity given so far, MegaRide succeeds in the goal of investing in a new generation of racing professionals, and the 2019 year turnover reaches 1 million €.
May 2019, MegaRide technologies for real-time physical simulation win the title of «Development Tool of the Year» in the field of vehicle dynamics. For the first time, this recognition is assigned by the international magazine to a startup and to a reality coming from the context of Italian scientific research. The jury recognized the ability to meet the demands of car and tire manufacturers, vehicle dynamics experts and track engineers, thanks to innovative algorithms and models for the physical simulation of the interaction between vehicle and external environment.
After being selected, as the first ranked, for the acceleration and incubation program «New Steel», MegaRide establishes in December 2018 a second operating center, located at the academic incubator certified “Campania NewSteel”. There, a growing team can operate in a stimulating startup environment, where our “4-wheeled lab” is available for daily testing and onboard technologies development.
MegaRide’s approach to driving simulations aims to guarantee the requirements of hard real-time environments with exactly the same models used in offline applications. thermoRIDE and adheRIDE were seladoptedected in some of the most advanced driving simulators in the world, for their attitude to enhance the realism in drivers’ perception and the reliability of tire data concerning handling and multiphysics in limit conditions.
Thanks to European fund, related to the POR Campania FESR, in May 2018 SmartRide project was born. It consists in the development of innovative algorithms to be implemented on car ECU with the aim to estimate in real time the most important physical parameters related to mobility. The final goal is to improve road safety through an optimized usage of active control systems and exchanging information between vehicles, in order to provide a real time map of the road conditions based on real-time adherence evaluations.
February 2018, MegaRide is declared the best international supplier of technology and innovation for tyre development in 2017. It happened in Hannover, at Tire Technology International 2018, one of the most important events in the automotive industry worldwide, with the presentation of two complementary tools that constituted the winning technology, the thermal model thermoRIDE and the grip model adheRIDE.
In July 2017, the first official version of the thermoRIDE model is released. It is designed to predict, in real time, the temperature of the various tire layers, basing on telemetry data processing. The physical model is able to provide energetic fluxes and local temperature distribution, with particular reference to the deep layers usually not reached by the measuring instruments.
In June 2017, the exclusive partnership with Audi Sport in Formula E and DTM began, whose aim was the development of specific tools to predict and simulate tire behaviour, with a strong emphasis on real-time computation, for driving simulators and optimization tools.
In February 2017 the signing of an agreement until the end of the 2018 season with the Ducati Corse MotoGP Team was announced; the partnership involved the development of software, dedicated to the simulation of the tyre behavior, and of the overall bikeperformance, offering the team a valuable tool to define as quickly as possible the best setup for the optimal race strategy to adopt during the stages of the MotoGP Championship.
The first business plan competition to which Megaride took part, in 2016, at the dawn of the constitution, was Start Cup Campania, held in the context of the innovation event «Futuro Remoto». The affirmation within the local competition confirmed to being creating a solid path, and brought the possibility of participating to the “International Innovation Prize” where the special award ‘Shark Bites’ was received.
MegaRide – applied vehicle research, was born in June 2016, as an academic spin-off of the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University Federico II, to provide market value to research products of the Vehicle Dynamics Group. The startup works as a software house and a testing center, setting as a reference point in the development of advanced models for real-time simulations in vehicle dynamics.
