Tucked away in a refurbished mill in Stockport, a small team of engineers and scientists are quietly working on something that has the potential to transform sectors from industry to global healthcare.
Silveray, a University of Surrey deeptech spin-out now based in the North, is initially developing X-ray detector technology designed to make industrial inspections faster, cheaper, and more flexible.
“We talk about it as a game-changer,” Dan Cathie, co-founder CEO at Silveray, tells Prolific North. “If our material does what the research suggests it can, it could completely transform the X-ray industry.”
He’s also eyeing a bigger ambition of bringing affordable, ‘colour-like’ detail to X-ray imaging in hospitals and clinics.
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If successful, the company’s technology could help doctors see more clearly, allowing them to spot conditions earlier and ultimately helping to save more lives.
Scaling Silveray to the North
Before taking the reins at one of the UK’s most promising X-ray spin-outs, Cathie had already spent years building and leading tech and semiconductor businesses.
After moving from Brussels to the UK, his first job after university involved designing chips for Philips Semiconductors, during the heyday of CDs and DVDs. It was a role that soon opened doors to leadership opportunities in New York.
But after becoming frustrated by the slow pace of decision-making in the corporate world, he returned to the UK to join a Manchester-based scientific glassblowing firm.
“It was really where I cut my teeth on how to run a business,” he recalls. “When you’re in a large corporation, you’re one tiny little cog in a big machine. But when you’re in a small company, suddenly you get visibility of everything from sales, manufacturing, finance to HR. It was challenging but a lot of fun. I loved it.”
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That experience gave him a taste for building and scaling small businesses, leading him to vivaMOS, a deeptech spin-out from the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which he guided through to its acquisition by Nordson Corporation.
It was that success and his expertise in X-ray technology that paved the way for his next challenge to lead Silveray, a University of Surrey spin-out founded in 2018 by Professor Ravi Silva at the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI).
As Silveray’s research began to gain momentum, Cathie was approached in 2022 to take on the top job and help scale the company’s X-ray detector technology. And for him, the decision was an easy one.
“I’m always interested in looking at new technology. It’s my passion. When I looked at the research and the papers, I thought: ‘Wow, this is incredible. If this stuff does what the papers imply it can do, even if it can only do some of it, it’s a complete game-changer for the X-ray industry.’ So I said: ‘I’m in!’”
Silveray had no team or premises at the time, just an offer of a space in Cambridge. But for Cathie, the decision about where to build was as personal as it was professional.
He and his wife, once foster carers, are now parents to six children, three of whom are adopted. That family dynamic was a major factor in his decision to base Silveray in the North.
“Everyone still lives at home, so we’re constantly juggling whatever’s going on in work and whatever’s going on at home. That’s one of the things that led me to start Silveray up here, despite it being a spin-out from the University of Surrey.
“I could not justify travelling down South every week again. At vivaMOS, it was two days a week down there, three days a week up here.”
Greater Manchester was an easy sell. With its deep engineering talent pool, strong university network and growing investor ecosystem, it offered plenty of opportunities.
“One thing I promised my family was that my next job would be local. So, if I was going to do this, Silveray had to be based somewhere around Greater Manchester.”
A vision beyond black and white
Most of us are familiar with the traditional hospital X-ray image. That image is created when X-rays pass through the body and hit a detector panel, which converts them into a digital signal.
Silveray’s innovation is in the detector itself. The company’s secret weapon is a new semiconductor “ink” known as NPX, which converts X-rays into a signal with a better image quality, and at a “much lower” cost.
Crucially, this approach preserves the “spectral information” within the X-ray. To put it simply, it allows the technology to produce colour-like detail in X-rays to help differentiate between different materials.
“My vision, in the longer term, is to really transform the X-ray industry through technology in as simple a way as possible,” he explains.
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In future, instead of doctors examining a flat grey image, they could be able to see bones and tissue separately. For instance, this could mean consultants would be able to view the lungs without the ribs obscuring them and potentially help to diagnose diseases from a standard chest X-ray.
It would prove to be a major development that could lead to faster treatments and better outcomes for patients.
“That’s one of the huge opportunities that we have to completely transform an industry in the medical space. Whether we ever get there or not, who knows, but that’s a vision I have.”
From industrial inspections to global ambition
For now, Silveray is laser-focused on working with large industrial manufacturers to transform their inspection processes.
Its first product, DXF, is a flexible digital “X-ray film” designed for radiographers inspecting welds and pipelines. Currently, radiographers rely on traditional film, wrapping it around a pipe, exposing it to radiation, and then developing it by hand.
By using Silveray’s digital alternative, industrial radiographers will be able to directly plug the X-ray digital film into a laptop via USB-C connection, without needing to go and develop and store the film.
The industrial market is proving to be just the fuel Silveray needs before it can take on those broader ambitions to modernise the X-ray market.
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And following a £4m seed investment led by Northern Gritstone last year, Silveray is accelerating towards its first product launch.
The company’s new production facility in Stockport, which will act as a dedicated semiconductor cleanroom where the detectors will be tested, is set to be completed by the end of 2025.
“The components for our first prototypes of our digital X-ray film for the industrial market are in transit right now, so in the next few weeks, we will be testing it out. Our aim by the end of this year is to have our first purchase order and that then gives us a platform to start scaling up next year.”
Silveray’s team of 18 is currently focused on research and product development, with the next five hires set to expand into production and sales in 2026.
“The next phase is going to be super busy in terms of product launches and sales.”
Silveray’s story may still be in its early chapters, but its potential impact appears to be vast. Although Cathie acknowledges that low-cost detectors in global healthcare are still in the realm of “visionary stuff”, it’s a mission he clearly cares deeply about.
“My ambition is for us to make low-cost detectors that cost less than $1,000. When you consider that the cheapest detectors in the market today are closer to $10,000, if it was less than $1,000 you could completely change the cost of the system to do radiology in developing nations and make it accessible for people who don’t have access to it today. “
“That means people could get diagnosed and treated earlier, transforming access to healthcare. That’s the kind of impact we’re aiming for.”
As we wrap up our chat, he reflects on what he’s learnt since achieving his long-held ambition of becoming a CEO. For him, good leadership comes down to two things: good strategy and communication.
It’s a philosophy that feels fitting for someone as passionate as Cathie.
“Those two things are fundamental to the success of a start-up. I’ve said to everyone in the team as they’ve joined us that there are a lot of unknowns that we don’t know about, that we’re just going to work through when they arise.
“Let’s enjoy the journey, let’s have fun, and let’s have a strategy and stick to it. And execute as best as we can on it.”
