0:18 – 0:27
Chul deploys battery integrated DC chargers to provide a very high power charge in all the places that enterprise fleets need to charge but find it difficult.
0:31 – 0:40
Skyports are drone service providers. We wanted to use drones to deliver mail in some of the hardest to reach areas in the uk.
0:44 – 0:54
What we’ve developed is a transport container for multi temperature required products, primarily food. We can maintain temperature for up to 30 hours.
0:58 – 1:30
Pollution coming from brake dust and tire wear is very bad for humans. So we’ve developed a couple of solutions that retrofit to vehicles to capture brake dust at source. The Freight Innovation Fund is a three year multifaceted program funded by the Department for Transport designed to develop innovation in the freight sector. They’ve invested £7 million to support SMEs and their technology development and help them to trial that in real life scenarios. And that’s done through two building blocks.
1:30 – 1:55
One is an accelerator program and one is a cluster. So the Orkney Airport project as part of the Freight Innovation Fund was the first time that drones were used to deliver mail every single day directly. As a result of the program, we have won a follow on contract to work with Royal Mail and to work with the European Space Agency. And we’ve also had to hire new team members to continue our work. So the FIF accelerator has been incredibly useful for us.
1:55 – 2:28
We’ve been able to partner with Wincanton on one of their big commercial contracts. A demonstration that we can bring other customers along and they can see this stuff working in field. We were really happy to be partnered with Chool to help really inform their product roadmap and to learn more about their pioneering technology and improve our road to net zero. The Freight Innovation Fund helped us to support prototype production expensive testing equipment allowing us to do about five weeks of testing on closed track trials. We were able to validate our concept and go to the next step of road trials.
2:28 – 2:58
The Freight Innovation Fund was immensely important in Hubble’s journey. The news that we have won this grant program helped close a 1.1 million pounds deal which allowed us to expand our team, move to manufacture ready stage of the business. And we recently finalized our Series c for around 110 million US dollars. So working with people like Wesprint in the accelerator has allowed us to raise a million pound equity investment and a multimillion pound asset finance package. Confident we’ve got technology that works in field, we can now take it to the market.
2:58 – 3:35
Having the Freight Innovation Cluster has been really good for skyports. We’ve met loads of really interesting customers and partners and work with them on some of the use cases and see where drones might be applicable in their business. The Freight Innovation Fund cluster really keeps me in the loop as far as technology innovation and what the industry is doing. Our vision is to ensure that the Cauldron solution, which brings sustainable cooling, cost savings and modularity into food logistics globally. We would love to get our product to market globally, scale it and be able to replicate this innovation.
3:35 – 4:07
But across other sectors, everyone at skyforge is working towards making the company the world’s best unmanned airline. We believe that that is the future and we want to do that in a really big way. The Freight Innovation Fund has brought real value to the logistics sector to trial new technology, to work with new partners and to bring fresh thinking into our organization. There’s always a gap between the prototype stage and the ability to commercialise and productise stuff, and that’s where the FIF is so useful. It’s been really critical for us proving our technology in a commercial environment.
4:07 – 4:17
There is phenomenal support for startup businesses in the uk, such as the Catapult, which has been incredibly helpful. They’re there, the doors wide open, Go and talk to them.
