Tell us about yourself.
I am a chartered mechanical engineer with a specialism in composites and composite structures. I spent nearly 20 years predominantly in motor sport. My last role there was chief engineer with a Formula One team. And from there I spent some time in [maritime-focused weather services provider] Aerospace & Marine, and I am very happy to be at Williams Advanced Engineering for three years now.
Williams’s Formula One activities are well known, so introduce us to Williams Advanced Engineering.
We are a cross-sector of engineering consultancy. So we currently have about 40 live projects, in everything really, from automotive, motorsport, marine, aerospace, medical devices. So it is quite a broad remit. It requires quite an agile and knowledgeable workforce, so we have some quite disparate and diverse challenges on a day-to-day basis. It is quite stimulating, very, very interesting.
We have around 200 employees and about 90% of our revenue comes from engineering consulting, engineering services.
You recently announced the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund. How is that going to work relative to Williams Advanced Engineering?
It will enable us to co-invest in businesses and technologies that we think have potential. It also gives us an opportunity to draw down on engineering services, as we can provide engineering support to any startups as and where appropriate, under a master service agreement. So it is quite an attractive way to enable us to put resource into projects, which would otherwise be paid consultancy.
What is the size and plan for the fund in terms of investment sizes and number of years?
The fund in total will be £20m ($25m), with tranches in the region of £2m over a five-year period.
What sort of technology readiness level (TRL) are these startups likely to have?
That is a good question and it depends a lot on when you look at that on an individual basis. Typically it will be anything from TRL 4 to 6 or 7, I would suspect. But at the moment we have, in the pipeline, quite a spread of technology, so it is difficult to normalise that.
I guess it will vary as well, depending on the types of technologies or areas you are interested in?
Very much so. It is better if it is loosely associated with Williams’s core activity, so the brand helps and can add some strength and value to acquisitions.
What types of technologies or business model opportunities are you looking for that would align with Williams’s core business?
Well it has to be EIS [Enterprise Investment Scheme] compatible as it is an EIS fund. So it has to be UK-based. But apart from that, it is quite a broad remit.
People are central to corporate venture capital and innovation. Tell us about some of the individuals from advanced engineering who may be involved in managing the fund, and the approach it will take?
Williams’s role in this is really technical due diligence and applying the engineering services. The financial side of it will be provided predominantly by [private equity firm] Foresight. So we are really here to try to draw on the resources of Williams Advanced Engineering to be able to portion that.
So Williams’s role will be the technology due diligence, the validation with your customers and your teams?
That is right, and the delivering, or derisking, of any programs and just helping develop them. We have got some fantastic human and capital resources here. So any of these opportunities are able to draw down on a first-class engineering facility here that has been set up by the Formula One team. We have our own capability here to augment that, but it is a very self-contained business.
Regarding the ventures you have invested in, what sort of support would they be expecting?
It is really getting access to a group of talented well-motivated people. That can pay huge dividends. Motorsport tends to breed quite an agile workforce. We were always taught to challenge convention. We are always looking for the competitive edge, and that does filter down. The majority of the people here come from a motorsport background, so that ethos goes through the company.
Having said that, Advanced Engineering has got a different provenance. We are working towards ISO 9001 [a quality management certification]. We work on some defence projects as well, manufacturing components for them. So we need to have all the rigour that goes with that.
So it is a flavour of Formula One and motorsport, but it has the maturity of a bigger organisation at the same time. It is trying to cherrypick that and balance it so that you are not encumbered by it.
One reason to have corporate venturing or innovation units is to try to get some of that agility into the core business. What you bring from the motorsport side is that agility, but also with the quality and the rigour you need to keep these machines going at over 200mph.
Exactly. It is a balance, you know. There is a bit of tension there between the two, but we have got experience of trying to manage that.
You talked about the technical expertise you can give to these startups, but are you expecting to sit on the boards?
That is possible. It depends on the structure of the opportunity and how the financial side of it is governed.
We have covered pretty well how Williams Advanced Engineering connects to the startups. How do you see some of those opportunities connecting to the Formula One business? Any expectations or hopes of spinoffs from that?
It is possible that could happen in a number different ways. The volumes of Formula One are not necessarily what a startup might be looking for, but certainly the association and the proofing of the technology in that environment can be very beneficial. And it gives us an early sight into what the art of the possible is and being able to derisk it.
A good point – the number of cars you are producing is not going to be the level or size of a General Motors.
Exactly, it is very bespoke. But this is actually an example of something we are doing in-house.
Is that carbon fibre?
It is a carbon fibre wishbone but Williams has actually developed this itself, so we have invested some intellectual property in that. This is designed for volume production. We are talking about anything up to 750,000 units a year. But that is something where we have taken something relevant to Formula One and we have applied it to the roads.
Give us an example of a particular project or venture you have worked on. What was the size of that firm? What were the technologies?
We have not invested yet with the new fund obviously. It is still growing. So the closest example is probably Aerofoil Energy. This is a company that came to us with an idea for improving the efficiency of open-face fridges in supermarkets. As you have walked along an aisle you have obviously felt it.
They came up with quite an interesting and quite a simple principle of using an aerofoil on the edge of the fridge to redirect cold air back into the fridge, so there are fewer losses into the aisle. They had a good idea, they came to us, we saw the potential in it and worked with them to develop it.
Aerodynamics is one of our core tenets here so we were able to apply some fairly sophisticated computational fluid dynamic modelling to this to help improve the efficiency even further and to validate the principle. We sunk some engineering costs into that and it has had some benefits from Aerofoil Energy, so that worked quite well and that really was the catalyst for the venture fund. Some of those fridges with the modifications are now on trial in about 20 stores in the UK, and they are proving quite successful.
What do you do when you are not involved in engineering? What do you do to relax?
We spend a lot of time here, so it is good to get out and get some fresh air. I like to head for the hills. The hills or the sea, actually, one of the two. I don’t mind. Just get out.
You can listen to this and other interviews on a podcast available at gaulesqt.podomatic.com
Andrew Gaule leads the GCV Academy, developing the capabilities and expertise of organisations leading open innovation, venturing and corporate venturing programs to drive strategic benefit. He also supports innovation programs and collaborations in “innovative new value chains” in global organisations.
To contact Andrew Gaule and for future interview ideas, email andrew.gaule@aimava.com or James Mawson, jmawson@globalcorporateventuring.com