General News
23 July, 2025
Global recognition for clever invention
TINKERING away in a basement 16,400 kilometres away from his hometown, former Ararat resident Simon Faneco has invented a product with the potential to revolutionise the E-bike industry.
Mr Faneco is making waves with his brand ratioX, having developed a touchless, fully stepless automatic gear transmission specifically for E-bikes.
The company took out top spot in competition for innovative start-up businesses at the E-Bike Future X convention in Vienna, Austria which is one of the world’s premier gatherings in the E-bike and micromobility industry, and now Mr Faneco is riding the wave of momentum to bring his vision to market.
“It definitely raised awareness for our company, I think it also gives credibility,” Mr Faneco said.
The attention has led to positive discussions with potential investors and distribution partners as ratioX edges closer to a commercial launch.
The talented engineer has called Lausanne, Switzerland home for the past 11 years and acknowledges he’s overdue for a trip home.
“A long time, pre-COVID, in 2018 so it’s been a bit long, I’m hopefully coming home for Christmas this year,” said Mr Faneco.
“I’ve had a kid during COVID and he’ll be turning five so it’s probably a good time to come, he’s at an age where he wants to meet his cousins, as well as come and see some koalas and kangaroos.”
Having worked for several high-profile companies in design and engineering roles, his invention reflects the skillset he’s developed but is also shaped by growing up as a keen cyclist in Ararat.
Throughout high school at Ararat Secondary College, Mr Faneco admits that if you asked him at age 16 what he’d be doing today, it’s unlikely he’d have said he’ll be an engineer and industrial designer.
“I just remember in one of the textbooks they had a question about the physics of a motorbike jumping, a motorcross bike jumping through the air, which is what I was doing with all my spare time,” he said.
“To actually put it into physical calculations and understand at a theoretical, mathematical level what’s happening when you jump your motorbike through the air, that was the first time I went ‘oh wow, there’s actually a purpose for maths!’ and I think understanding it all helped make me a better rider.”
Mr Faneco studied product design engineering at Swinburne University and has had a fascinating career, honing skills while working with huge international brands such as Philips and Toyota, as well as boutique operations like industrial design and engineering consultants Charlwood Design where he had an immediate impact as an intern while completing his studies.
“I won a global competition for redesigning car brakes, we designed the brakes for an Audi S4 and it revolutionised the way brakes look on cars based on that, now any car you see now with the big red brakes on it, that was inspired by that win.”
“I didn’t get much money for it,” he said with a laugh, “someone did, not me, that’s for sure, I got my minimum wage because I still wasn’t an engineer at that point, I just had an internship wage.”
Mr Faneco spent six years with Futuris Automotive, whose innovations in automotive seating were taking the world by storm during his time working there, where he played a key role in the development of Tesla Model S seats.
When the Australian automotive industry hit the skids, Mr Faneco said a conversation with a mentor about what the next phase of his career could look like, made him consider heading back to university to pursue a Master of Business Administration.
“You want to go to a top school, get the network and everything like that and in Lausanne there’s a top business school so I applied, everyone thought I wouldn’t get in, but I got in, so that’s how I ended up moving to Switzerland in 2014, it was to do my MBA,” he said.
With a freshly minted MBA in hand, Mr Faneco joined the world’s largest food and beverage company, Nestlé, as a scientific project manager before transferring to the company’s operations consulting division.
“That for sure got my financial skills up quickly, because when you’ve got to present to senior Nestlé guys about a several-million-dollar investment case, you’d better know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Though his career was blossoming, Mr Faneco had a vision brewing in the background for what became ratioX and eventually mustered up the courage to have a crack at working for himself.
“I had the idea for ratioX, I’d been doing it on the side while I was at Nestlé, like on the weekends and evenings, sort-of building it in my basement, and I thought it was close to production and I’d secured some funding, so I jumped in 2019,” he said.
“It was a decision that wasn’t taken lightly, for sure, with me and my wife, she’s been a big supporter.”
One thing Mr Faneco couldn’t have anticipated when he decided to leave his comfortable job to pursue his passion project, was the world getting turned upside down with the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the pandemic came major financial headaches and production challenges for Mr Faneco, which meant his company had a few false starts and turbulent moments, however now with the recent award and attention that it brings, the future looks bright for ratioX.
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