Nationwide Engineering Research and Development (NERD) has raised £8 million (over USD$9.5 million) in seed funding as it looks to commercialize a graphene-enhanced building material called Concretene. The funding came from the venture capital firm LocalGlobe. NERD, a company founded by Nationwide Engineering Group, developed Concretene with the goal of creating a stronger and more sustainable product than traditional concrete by adding a graphene formulation into the hydration process of concrete development. NERD said that when deployed on active construction projects, Concretene was as much as 30-50% stronger than standard concrete.