1 00:00:01,810 --> 00:00:10,700 Welcome to Oxford+, the podcast series that takes you deep into the myths and 2 00:00:10,700 --> 00:00:13,140 truths of the Oxford investing landscape. 3 00:00:13,510 --> 00:00:16,270 I'm your host, Susannah de Jager and I've spent over 15 4 00:00:16,270 --> 00:00:17,920 years in UK asset management. 5 00:00:18,399 --> 00:00:20,059 My guest today is Mark Preston. 6 00:00:20,250 --> 00:00:23,469 Mark has a degree from Monash University in engineering, which he 7 00:00:23,469 --> 00:00:25,000 initially applied to Formula One. 8 00:00:25,430 --> 00:00:28,840 Having run multiple teams engineering departments, he subsequently moved 9 00:00:28,840 --> 00:00:30,870 into strategy and executive management. 10 00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:35,010 More recently, he's focused on Formula E, leading the DS Cheetah team 11 00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:38,260 before founding StreetDrone in 2016. 12 00:00:38,630 --> 00:00:42,265 Mark is currently CTO of StreetDrone, a pre-seed company 13 00:00:42,265 --> 00:00:46,054 developing low speed, hyper-local deliveries in ports, commercial 14 00:00:46,064 --> 00:00:47,474 settings and local neighbourhoods. 15 00:00:47,915 --> 00:00:50,404 Mark, thank you so much for joining me today. 16 00:00:50,930 --> 00:00:53,250 Looking forward to chatting in this lovely setting here. 17 00:00:53,364 --> 00:00:53,994 Wonderful. 18 00:00:54,695 --> 00:00:58,824 I'm excited to get your perspective because so far lots of the guests 19 00:00:58,905 --> 00:01:03,364 we've had have been focused on the university ecosystem and you obviously 20 00:01:03,364 --> 00:01:05,395 come with a different perspective. 21 00:01:05,915 --> 00:01:08,965 It might be really helpful for those listening to hear a little bit 22 00:01:08,965 --> 00:01:12,785 more about your background and how you ended up founding StreetDrone. 23 00:01:13,290 --> 00:01:13,750 Sure. 24 00:01:13,780 --> 00:01:16,620 So I'm from Australia, from a city called Geelong, which is actually 25 00:01:16,620 --> 00:01:20,530 the, kind of the Ford town in Australia, so I grew up around cars. 26 00:01:20,900 --> 00:01:26,259 After doing mechanical engineering, I joined GM in Australia, GM Holden, which 27 00:01:26,259 --> 00:01:30,580 is a part of the GM infrastructure, I suppose, around the world, as an engineer, 28 00:01:30,580 --> 00:01:35,399 then I moved over to a company called TWR, Holden Special Vehicles, so in project 29 00:01:35,399 --> 00:01:36,780 management and those kind of things. 30 00:01:37,320 --> 00:01:40,880 Then the guy who owned that, his name was Tom Walkinshaw, he bought a Formula 31 00:01:40,890 --> 00:01:45,080 One team in the UK, he's from Scotland, was from Scotland, he passed away. 32 00:01:45,530 --> 00:01:49,040 So I joined, came over to do F1 for two weeks or two years, and 33 00:01:49,050 --> 00:01:52,900 25 years later, I'm still here doing all sorts of technology and 34 00:01:52,910 --> 00:01:54,560 motorsport and those kind of things. 35 00:01:55,130 --> 00:02:00,405 Worked at Arrows Grand Prix for about six years, then I went to McLaren F1 36 00:02:00,415 --> 00:02:04,584 for a few years and then decided to do my MBA and that's the connection 37 00:02:04,584 --> 00:02:10,055 sort of to the university when I came in and did my EMBA at Saïd Business 38 00:02:10,055 --> 00:02:13,645 School and during the MBA, I started a Formula One team with Honda. 39 00:02:13,645 --> 00:02:14,235 As one does. 40 00:02:14,235 --> 00:02:15,135 Oh, yes, it was good fun. 41 00:02:15,175 --> 00:02:17,870 So that was my kind of first start-up, let's call it, big start 42 00:02:17,870 --> 00:02:22,590 up while doing, connected to the university, but doing a bit of both. 43 00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:27,110 So we started the Formula One team, which was a pretty crazy venture in Oxfordshire. 44 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:31,850 Sadly, Honda pulled out of that and we bought the assets and started 45 00:02:31,860 --> 00:02:35,630 another company which is a composites company called FormTech Composites, 46 00:02:35,630 --> 00:02:40,610 which still operates down in Milton Park, so not so far away and then I 47 00:02:40,610 --> 00:02:44,175 got involved in the next big thing, which was Formula Electric, which 48 00:02:44,185 --> 00:02:49,075 Alejandro started way back in 2012, which now seems like a long time ago. 49 00:02:49,565 --> 00:02:53,614 I suppose in parallel, one of the connections there to the university 50 00:02:53,624 --> 00:02:57,135 was after my MBA, I wanted to see if I could help some other 51 00:02:57,144 --> 00:03:01,454 startups out of university, and they introduced me to two startups. 52 00:03:01,454 --> 00:03:06,615 One was Oxford YASA motors, which sold recently and I helped them to do 53 00:03:06,615 --> 00:03:10,124 the business planning and everything, which is how I got involved in electric 54 00:03:10,555 --> 00:03:15,205 motors and started to understand about what could be the future of automotive 55 00:03:15,205 --> 00:03:19,005 and transportation in the world, so that was my kind of big connection, I 56 00:03:19,005 --> 00:03:22,785 suppose, to the university by helping them to start up and, spin out. 57 00:03:23,155 --> 00:03:27,045 There was another one called T-TEC, which is tidal energy turbines, but that was 58 00:03:27,045 --> 00:03:31,835 a bit more of a bigger project, which we couldn't get off the ground because it's 59 00:03:31,855 --> 00:03:37,910 just such big engineering and I suppose UK is not quite so used to doing what I 60 00:03:37,910 --> 00:03:40,120 would call public works projects nowadays. 61 00:03:40,590 --> 00:03:42,320 But anyway, that was an interesting one as well. 62 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:45,259 So I got involved in Formula Electric and along the way started to look 63 00:03:45,260 --> 00:03:49,370 at what else was going to happen in my favorite world of automotive, 64 00:03:49,409 --> 00:03:51,810 which turned out to be autonomous. 65 00:03:51,829 --> 00:03:56,390 So with a colleague of mine, Mike Potts, we started StreetDrone to have a look 66 00:03:56,390 --> 00:04:00,245 at autonomous vehicles and support, initially some of the startups that were 67 00:04:00,245 --> 00:04:04,125 also happening in the UK with vehicles and that's kind of where we're up to now. 68 00:04:04,464 --> 00:04:07,815 Wonderful, thank you, that was a really excellent whistle stop tour of a, 69 00:04:07,825 --> 00:04:09,755 of quite a long and detailed career. 70 00:04:09,964 --> 00:04:13,485 I mean, I think it would be fair to say you've got a lot of experience 71 00:04:13,495 --> 00:04:17,334 and you very kindly touched on how it integrated with the university 72 00:04:17,404 --> 00:04:18,894 and more distinct from it. 73 00:04:19,284 --> 00:04:23,585 Something when we met the other day that really struck me and it's my naivety I'm 74 00:04:23,585 --> 00:04:27,875 sure, not other people's, but you know, Oxford+ is talking about the university 75 00:04:28,175 --> 00:04:32,435 and outside of it and you actually articulated just on the scale of the 76 00:04:32,435 --> 00:04:38,005 motorsports cluster, you know, kind of near Oxford and I'm really interested 77 00:04:38,015 --> 00:04:42,644 firstly to hear a bit more about it, but also when the UK talks about trying to 78 00:04:42,645 --> 00:04:46,434 build clusters, I can't help thinking there's so much we could learn from the 79 00:04:46,435 --> 00:04:51,805 existing ones and I'd love to get your perspective on how it operates and what 80 00:04:51,845 --> 00:04:55,585 I suppose the distinct characteristics are that we should be trying to emulate. 81 00:04:55,625 --> 00:04:57,845 Yeah, I find it really interesting, the whole cluster here. 82 00:04:57,845 --> 00:05:02,585 So there's, of the F1 teams, we're the ones that drive the cluster. 83 00:05:03,255 --> 00:05:06,324 So I'm not going to count how many there are at the moment, I'm going for 84 00:05:06,324 --> 00:05:10,105 the six or seven depending on whether they've got satellite offices here as 85 00:05:10,105 --> 00:05:13,175 well, so you may not realise that some of them still have offices here, even 86 00:05:13,195 --> 00:05:18,355 if they're not primarily based here and that sort of spreads from Silverstone, 87 00:05:18,505 --> 00:05:22,575 being the racetrack and then down as far as obviously McLaren in London, but 88 00:05:23,315 --> 00:05:26,614 up as far as Mercedes high performance engines, at least that's one of the 89 00:05:26,614 --> 00:05:28,495 more famous ones at the, in Northampton. 90 00:05:29,034 --> 00:05:35,315 So there's about 40, 000 people that work in the industry and it's probably driven, 91 00:05:35,525 --> 00:05:39,675 the thing that I found is the most similar to Silicon Valley is I think there's 92 00:05:39,675 --> 00:05:44,034 what they call high labor mobility, meaning if a project fails or stops, 93 00:05:44,034 --> 00:05:48,325 like we've had a few projects stop when a car company pulls out, it doesn't take 94 00:05:48,335 --> 00:05:53,780 long for all those people to get taken up into the next project or expansion or 95 00:05:53,790 --> 00:05:59,330 growth or something and I think that's quite key because it means people aren't 96 00:05:59,600 --> 00:06:03,460 afraid to lose their jobs, which sounds terrible, but it sort of shows that 97 00:06:03,479 --> 00:06:08,069 mobility of people means that it shouldn't be a problem to shut something down. 98 00:06:08,069 --> 00:06:10,750 That's not great, but it does allow for things to ebb and 99 00:06:10,750 --> 00:06:11,890 flow and grow and change. 100 00:06:11,980 --> 00:06:13,430 Well it's not backwater, is it? 101 00:06:13,500 --> 00:06:16,465 You're not trying to hire somebody into somewhere where they've kind of backed 102 00:06:16,465 --> 00:06:20,245 into a cul-de-sac if it fails and so I should imagine that attracting that top 103 00:06:20,245 --> 00:06:24,115 talent, when there's that optionality, just that much more appealing. 104 00:06:24,115 --> 00:06:26,844 Like, oh, well if it fails, at least I haven't moved my whole family somewhere. 105 00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:29,760 Exactly and that's what you find a lot of people from all the countries around the 106 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:34,240 world, including myself, lots of Italians and French and Germans and everybody 107 00:06:34,460 --> 00:06:39,260 that are in, Spanish, et cetera, that all come and live in this region, in order to 108 00:06:39,260 --> 00:06:45,115 work in motorsports and that huge supply chain is very high tech, very high end. 109 00:06:45,555 --> 00:06:50,405 We've had some startups, or helped a few things out of Oxford, where often 110 00:06:50,405 --> 00:06:54,934 Formula One will experiment way earlier than anybody else, so universities are 111 00:06:54,935 --> 00:06:59,895 known for doing the low TRL levels, so the Technology Readiness Levels, and F1 112 00:06:59,905 --> 00:07:04,674 would often scoop those levels up really low down, so sort of three and four and 113 00:07:04,975 --> 00:07:09,554 have a go at them or play and see whether those things are viable and if they're 114 00:07:09,554 --> 00:07:14,235 viable, perhaps help them scale up or at least go from sort of four to six and 115 00:07:14,235 --> 00:07:18,505 then use it and then if it doesn't work, then pass it on or it then grows its own 116 00:07:18,505 --> 00:07:21,264 way because F1's helped to get it going. 117 00:07:21,264 --> 00:07:25,844 So it's great because it can afford higher priced products at the beginning, 118 00:07:25,844 --> 00:07:29,375 especially if they're high performance and so I don't know if we've used 119 00:07:29,375 --> 00:07:33,959 the opportunities well enough in the region to, it has been used, but I'm 120 00:07:33,959 --> 00:07:38,100 sure it could be used more in order to help, some companies spin out quicker. 121 00:07:38,330 --> 00:07:38,870 Interesting. 122 00:07:39,620 --> 00:07:43,130 Just coming back to the elements, what you've described is a really 123 00:07:43,170 --> 00:07:46,750 high functioning and one of the main clusters and what we've described 124 00:07:46,750 --> 00:07:50,770 is one of the main benefits of that, so the talent cycling, and obviously 125 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:54,479 the funding of sort of things coming out of the university, early stage 126 00:07:54,479 --> 00:07:56,759 technology with a natural buyer. 127 00:07:57,509 --> 00:08:02,455 But if we want to create that in a maybe slightly different area, it sounds like 128 00:08:02,455 --> 00:08:06,325 potentially it's quite difficult because it almost relies upon a sort of critical 129 00:08:06,325 --> 00:08:10,715 mass in order to function, not maybe the latter part, but the talent element. 130 00:08:10,735 --> 00:08:16,695 So are there sort of, I suppose, areas that are maybe stand alongside Formula 131 00:08:16,695 --> 00:08:20,995 One that we could kind of naturally be cycling talent into them and so 132 00:08:21,044 --> 00:08:24,975 there's a natural place to sort of point to that's adjacent, I suppose? 133 00:08:25,049 --> 00:08:29,449 Yeah, I'm a big fan of, obviously do my MBA of the competitiveness of 134 00:08:29,449 --> 00:08:32,280 nations, you know, what you should be doing, what you're good at. 135 00:08:32,365 --> 00:08:32,685 Yeah. 136 00:08:33,605 --> 00:08:34,125 Makes sense. 137 00:08:34,129 --> 00:08:37,309 Like a kind of a joke that, you know, if you're going to buy surfboards, 138 00:08:37,310 --> 00:08:39,970 maybe you might buy an Australian surfboard, but if you're going to buy 139 00:08:39,970 --> 00:08:44,205 a car, I'm not so sure we should really have a big car industry in Australia. 140 00:08:44,605 --> 00:08:48,275 If you want to buy mining equipment maybe, or you know, so I think in some ways 141 00:08:48,275 --> 00:08:50,165 things should match what's going on there. 142 00:08:50,564 --> 00:08:53,414 There's certainly a lot of government strategies which follow along some 143 00:08:53,414 --> 00:08:59,295 of the main themes in motorsports, things like, advanced materials, so the 144 00:08:59,335 --> 00:09:03,245 machines to do the rapid prototyping and printing perhaps, you know, that becomes 145 00:09:03,245 --> 00:09:08,595 a separate stream, supported by the F1 teams who use them considerably now. 146 00:09:08,935 --> 00:09:13,134 So high value engineering, rapid manufacturing of parts, 147 00:09:13,294 --> 00:09:16,654 experimenting with things, things on the kind of bleeding edge. 148 00:09:16,935 --> 00:09:20,335 So I think there are a lot of companies that can benefit from being 149 00:09:20,795 --> 00:09:24,195 close to the F1 teams and then can help those technologies spin out. 150 00:09:24,710 --> 00:09:28,140 I mean, there's a lot of discussion at the moment about synthetic fuels and 151 00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:34,200 other things which F1 is pushing for the 2026 season and so there are startups and 152 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:39,030 there's obviously a lot of R&D going on in chemistry departments and those kinds 153 00:09:39,030 --> 00:09:40,410 of things at all the big universities. 154 00:09:40,410 --> 00:09:44,980 So again, there's ways in which those departments can link to some of the 155 00:09:44,980 --> 00:09:49,550 technology that's developing and then hopefully spin that over to F1 to kind of 156 00:09:49,579 --> 00:09:54,680 kickstart things and then maybe then find their way to, interestingly, the classic 157 00:09:54,690 --> 00:09:57,470 car industry in the UK, which is massive. 158 00:09:57,470 --> 00:10:01,349 So there's all these things that can then take that technology from 159 00:10:01,349 --> 00:10:04,440 the, let's say beachhead market, to the next market to the next market. 160 00:10:04,440 --> 00:10:07,749 So, this is certainly a lot of optionality here. 161 00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:11,810 Really interesting, and you spoke about the fact that a lot of the 162 00:10:11,810 --> 00:10:14,610 companies might actually just have a satellite office, it might not be 163 00:10:14,610 --> 00:10:16,010 their headquarters that are here. 164 00:10:16,869 --> 00:10:20,805 In your experience of having worked in Formula One, could we be doing more 165 00:10:20,805 --> 00:10:23,385 to attract more headquarters here? 166 00:10:23,425 --> 00:10:26,815 You know, I had a slightly depressing kind of sitting in traffic moment 167 00:10:26,825 --> 00:10:29,395 on the weekend, not even during the week, thinking, gosh, if you were 168 00:10:29,395 --> 00:10:33,674 looking to set up a company or a headquarters, this traffic issue in 169 00:10:33,674 --> 00:10:35,494 Oxford might, really put you off. 170 00:10:35,795 --> 00:10:39,175 That's a bit prosaic, but in your experience, you know, should the 171 00:10:39,175 --> 00:10:43,235 government be doing more to try and attract headquarters here so that they 172 00:10:43,255 --> 00:10:46,795 then supplement clusters and supplement what's coming out of the university? 173 00:10:47,260 --> 00:10:50,020 I think the biggest problem we've come across is Brexit, again. 174 00:10:50,200 --> 00:10:52,240 I wasn't, was I doing F1? 175 00:10:52,270 --> 00:10:56,270 Yeah, I was probably doing F1 back in the days when we probably, some of 176 00:10:56,270 --> 00:11:01,040 the trucks would have to drive across Europe through borders where you 177 00:11:01,069 --> 00:11:03,530 required this thing called a Carne, which is a piece of paper that let, 178 00:11:03,625 --> 00:11:05,295 you have to list every single thing. 179 00:11:05,375 --> 00:11:06,545 Not stealing the car! 180 00:11:06,545 --> 00:11:09,765 Yeah you to list every single thing in the vehicle and you're, in the 181 00:11:09,765 --> 00:11:11,114 truck, sorry, being delivered. 182 00:11:11,635 --> 00:11:15,424 Oh, sorry, it's delivering the cars and nowadays you also have to put where the 183 00:11:15,445 --> 00:11:20,285 origin of every part is and so you can imagine when a race team takes things 184 00:11:20,285 --> 00:11:25,895 from the UK to now back into Europe to go racing, the amount of paperwork and 185 00:11:25,964 --> 00:11:27,564 everything is just phenomenal again. 186 00:11:27,935 --> 00:11:31,604 So that's a big barrier we're having, we're actually looking ourselves 187 00:11:31,604 --> 00:11:34,324 at having an office in Europe. 188 00:11:34,339 --> 00:11:37,810 So that we can get around some of the having to import export. 189 00:11:37,830 --> 00:11:42,770 So we might buy something from Europe, do something to it and then send it back. 190 00:11:42,770 --> 00:11:45,520 So now we're looking at can we do, because we've got some things going 191 00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:46,859 on in Rotterdam at StreetDrone. 192 00:11:47,089 --> 00:11:47,189 Yeah. 193 00:11:47,189 --> 00:11:47,249 Yeah. 194 00:11:47,319 --> 00:11:51,069 So it'd be easier just to send that to Rotterdam and do the work in Rotterdam, 195 00:11:51,420 --> 00:11:54,540 then bring those parts over to the UK, do the work here and take it back. 196 00:11:54,540 --> 00:11:58,489 So there's all of that practicality and as I say I haven't experienced it 197 00:11:58,540 --> 00:12:03,420 recently in motorsports, but I know what we're having to do at StreetDrone, so 198 00:12:03,420 --> 00:12:06,140 therefore that is certainly very painful. 199 00:12:06,655 --> 00:12:12,354 Some of these big areas like Milton Park and what MEPC is doing up at Silverstone, 200 00:12:12,385 --> 00:12:16,704 growing the technology centers, we did look at, one point when we were looking 201 00:12:16,705 --> 00:12:20,795 to where to put an office with some of the tax breaks on some of the areas 202 00:12:20,795 --> 00:12:22,985 which are seen as free, is it free zones? 203 00:12:23,004 --> 00:12:27,844 Or there's areas where you can have business rate relief for a 204 00:12:27,844 --> 00:12:30,734 while to encourage someone to, you know, set up something here. 205 00:12:31,204 --> 00:12:34,515 A lot to do, of course, education and then the problem with sponsorship. 206 00:12:34,925 --> 00:12:38,645 Sponsoring people, actually getting enough people to work for you 207 00:12:38,964 --> 00:12:41,665 and then make it easy for us to bring people into the country. 208 00:12:42,045 --> 00:12:46,505 So, because we're in the high end areas, roboticists and all of that, 209 00:12:46,615 --> 00:12:50,515 you know, ourselves and other startups are taking a lot of those people, so 210 00:12:50,515 --> 00:12:54,895 it's, we do have a lot of, staff coming from overseas, and so the sponsorship 211 00:12:54,895 --> 00:12:59,935 side of things is just slow and difficult compared to before Brexit. 212 00:13:00,324 --> 00:13:03,959 So there's lots of barriers that have been put in place in the last number of years 213 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:08,660 that slow us down and mean that we're having to do different things in different 214 00:13:08,660 --> 00:13:10,130 countries in order to get around them. 215 00:13:10,175 --> 00:13:12,314 Yeah, slightly depressing to hear. 216 00:13:12,410 --> 00:13:12,710 Yes. 217 00:13:13,645 --> 00:13:18,745 I mean, yeah, the educational kind of, or the high value visas thing I've 218 00:13:18,745 --> 00:13:23,354 heard before from other people and it does seem to me that it's something 219 00:13:23,354 --> 00:13:25,704 there's been a bit of a noise on from the government, but not that 220 00:13:25,705 --> 00:13:27,785 much action perhaps just yet, and... 221 00:13:27,785 --> 00:13:28,194 Yeah. 222 00:13:28,194 --> 00:13:30,350 And fight for talent and bringing them in. 223 00:13:30,490 --> 00:13:33,200 We've, we're certainly having to, you know, have people to help us get 224 00:13:33,670 --> 00:13:37,449 all of those visas sorted out and, you know, it takes a few months to 225 00:13:37,449 --> 00:13:41,860 get somebody overseas, can't react as quickly as you can, let's say if 226 00:13:42,209 --> 00:13:46,194 the person is currently at university and would like to keep working. 227 00:13:46,194 --> 00:13:49,805 There are some visas that allow that to happen reasonably quickly, but 228 00:13:49,805 --> 00:13:54,074 you also need to check is that person going to be allowed to stay after that 229 00:13:54,165 --> 00:13:57,975 degree that they're doing that allows them to work here for a little while. 230 00:13:58,435 --> 00:13:59,495 Yeah, it's an interesting point. 231 00:13:59,495 --> 00:14:03,604 I think somebody told me the total number of global PhDs and it wasn't large. 232 00:14:03,614 --> 00:14:06,675 I mean, I suppose it's a really high level of education, so it 233 00:14:06,824 --> 00:14:08,265 shouldn't be that surprising. 234 00:14:08,265 --> 00:14:11,214 But I think it was like 10,000 a year and when you think of that 235 00:14:11,215 --> 00:14:12,604 as a sort of, how do we grab them? 236 00:14:12,604 --> 00:14:15,735 How do we make sure that it's really easy and appealing for them to come here? 237 00:14:16,104 --> 00:14:19,479 I think I even heard that, and I might get this wrong, but I'm pretty sure 238 00:14:19,479 --> 00:14:23,840 it was Qatar that was basically saying if you move to Qatar with a PhD, we'll 239 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:27,540 pay you £75,000 a year just to sit while you work out what you might do. 240 00:14:27,555 --> 00:14:28,394 Oh, okay. 241 00:14:28,409 --> 00:14:31,479 Just what you might do here so that the talent will actually arrive. 242 00:14:31,849 --> 00:14:32,879 Brexit friction. 243 00:14:33,069 --> 00:14:35,239 I thought I didn't realise you could call it Brexit fiction. 244 00:14:35,369 --> 00:14:38,149 Friction, sorry, that's a fiction maybe, but friction, yes. 245 00:14:38,150 --> 00:14:39,052 It was the... 246 00:14:39,114 --> 00:14:41,665 It was the fiction that the friction would go, wasn't it? 247 00:14:42,375 --> 00:14:43,305 That's the good joke there. 248 00:14:44,034 --> 00:14:44,125 Yes. 249 00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:47,729 So, we've obviously spoken about your experience of the cluster, but 250 00:14:47,729 --> 00:14:51,670 you have had some experience of the University too, if you'd be happy to 251 00:14:51,670 --> 00:14:53,340 share, I think it's quite interesting. 252 00:14:53,350 --> 00:14:58,036 So when I started looking at the tidal energy turbines with the guys from 253 00:14:58,036 --> 00:15:02,036 the civil engineering department, a novel new technology, looks like a 254 00:15:02,036 --> 00:15:05,286 big lawnmower on its side, like old fashioned lawnmower, barrel lawnmower. 255 00:15:05,736 --> 00:15:09,666 But the problem with those type of turbines is they're very big and you 256 00:15:09,666 --> 00:15:12,816 have to step towards the kind of risk. 257 00:15:12,826 --> 00:15:17,946 So in the end, you want to do something like the Seven Barrier, which goes right 258 00:15:17,946 --> 00:15:23,206 across that area and have a huge natural energy turbine, or places like the Orkney 259 00:15:23,206 --> 00:15:28,416 Islands in the north and when you go and watch the power of the waves in the 260 00:15:28,416 --> 00:15:34,401 Orkney Islands, the problem is going from this sort of small demonstrator that's 261 00:15:34,401 --> 00:15:39,241 in the university's water tanks doing testing to this thing that would have 262 00:15:39,241 --> 00:15:41,401 to be 70 meters long at each section. 263 00:15:41,881 --> 00:15:44,531 You can imagine if something goes wrong and that gets washed away. 264 00:15:44,901 --> 00:15:48,231 It's not like you're testing something on land where, all right, if the 265 00:15:48,261 --> 00:15:51,281 wind energy turbine starts to creak and groan or something, you could 266 00:15:51,281 --> 00:15:52,781 probably go up and take a blade off. 267 00:15:53,251 --> 00:15:55,631 But in this, you put it in the water and then it could just get washed 268 00:15:55,631 --> 00:15:57,391 away and that's the end of that. 269 00:15:57,891 --> 00:16:01,756 So, the difficulty was looking at going from that right up 270 00:16:01,756 --> 00:16:03,636 to a full scale operation. 271 00:16:04,086 --> 00:16:07,716 We worked out the cost of capital would have to be so low that the only way 272 00:16:07,716 --> 00:16:10,866 you could do it we thought was doing it as a national works project, as 273 00:16:10,866 --> 00:16:13,136 they used to call them in the old days. 274 00:16:13,446 --> 00:16:17,286 So, almost going back to the days of Brunel and everything in the 1890s 275 00:16:17,316 --> 00:16:18,926 when we did so much stuff in the UK. 276 00:16:18,926 --> 00:16:20,296 It built so many big things. 277 00:16:20,906 --> 00:16:23,186 Like speed railways or something. 278 00:16:23,536 --> 00:16:24,356 Just as an example. 279 00:16:26,266 --> 00:16:29,546 Yes, when China's building how many thousand kilometers per day or something. 280 00:16:29,661 --> 00:16:29,751 Don't! 281 00:16:30,596 --> 00:16:36,046 So that is a bit of a disappointment that we couldn't find a way to scale up such 282 00:16:36,046 --> 00:16:40,936 a risky project, but the fact that how much tidal energy we have around the UK. 283 00:16:40,956 --> 00:16:44,676 So it would require a different way of thinking, I think, to get such a 284 00:16:44,686 --> 00:16:46,736 big engineering project over the line. 285 00:16:47,056 --> 00:16:49,906 Obviously, we've got a lot of wind turbines on and offshore, which is 286 00:16:49,906 --> 00:16:53,336 great, although that seems to be slowing slightly in the offshore ones. 287 00:16:53,656 --> 00:16:57,336 But yeah, the tidal energy turbines are another step in terms of their 288 00:16:57,996 --> 00:17:01,901 complexity, not really, but more risk as you build up to what you're trying to do. 289 00:17:01,971 --> 00:17:05,891 And in terms of when you had that realisation that the capital required 290 00:17:05,891 --> 00:17:09,031 was just going to be massive and that it would have to be a completely different 291 00:17:09,041 --> 00:17:13,631 type of investor, did you actually then go and try and talk to government at 292 00:17:13,631 --> 00:17:16,631 all, or was it just something that you spoke to people and you said, well, 293 00:17:17,011 --> 00:17:19,081 there isn't the natural buyer of this? 294 00:17:19,131 --> 00:17:22,958 I did actually go down to Westminster and have a discussion, I don't 295 00:17:22,958 --> 00:17:24,221 know which department it was. 296 00:17:24,221 --> 00:17:24,771 I can't remember now. 297 00:17:24,771 --> 00:17:25,441 They've all changed. 298 00:17:25,651 --> 00:17:30,291 Yeah, so it could be so, probably energy I imagine, just to actually ask them, did 299 00:17:30,291 --> 00:17:34,111 they ever see a point at which something like this could work and did they agree 300 00:17:34,111 --> 00:17:37,231 with me that this is the type of different thought process would have to happen? 301 00:17:37,231 --> 00:17:40,221 And they, basically agreed with me, we didn't find a solution. 302 00:17:40,221 --> 00:17:43,601 So I kind of said, okay that's, we're not going to be able to go any 303 00:17:43,601 --> 00:17:47,331 further unless we can figure out a way of getting past that hurdle, or 304 00:17:47,331 --> 00:17:50,021 there was another solution, which we at the time didn't come up with. 305 00:17:51,361 --> 00:17:54,821 Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because in the project that I've been involved 306 00:17:54,821 --> 00:17:59,461 with for a while and it's now finished, we were talking to government quite a 307 00:17:59,471 --> 00:18:04,091 lot trying to understand if more pension capital could be released perhaps, you 308 00:18:04,091 --> 00:18:09,971 know, to create a larger, natural UK, not completely altruistic, but you know, 309 00:18:09,981 --> 00:18:14,181 at sufficiently large scale that there might be projects like you're describing, 310 00:18:14,181 --> 00:18:17,831 I think, that could fit within it and it did oscillate a little bit in the 311 00:18:17,831 --> 00:18:21,421 two years we were engaging with them, as I think things got a little bit less 312 00:18:21,421 --> 00:18:26,031 positive, but what was interesting was this sort of dialogue or rhetoric or 313 00:18:26,031 --> 00:18:30,611 kind of almost dogma, dare I say it, of that's a private sector problem. 314 00:18:30,661 --> 00:18:30,981 Yeah. 315 00:18:31,041 --> 00:18:31,201 Yeah. 316 00:18:31,351 --> 00:18:34,481 And we as the public sector don't think we should intervene. 317 00:18:34,561 --> 00:18:34,621 Yeah. 318 00:18:35,001 --> 00:18:41,261 And it's really interesting because it slightly belies the reality of other 319 00:18:41,261 --> 00:18:45,191 countries and what they're doing and again, with a slightly cynical hat 320 00:18:45,251 --> 00:18:49,691 on, state aid rules are viewed quite differently in different places and the 321 00:18:49,691 --> 00:18:54,551 way that they are interpreted and enforced in some countries is a bit more sort of, 322 00:18:54,551 --> 00:18:59,421 well that's fine and that we maybe hurt our own chances by being the most literal. 323 00:18:59,631 --> 00:19:02,871 We have made use of the smaller size funding. 324 00:19:02,871 --> 00:19:06,301 So the Entrepreneurs Investment Scheme which... 325 00:19:06,301 --> 00:19:06,831 Absolutely. 326 00:19:06,901 --> 00:19:10,161 ...works really wonderfully, that's for the very low level. 327 00:19:10,491 --> 00:19:13,781 If you match that with what actually an F1 team's like, you would say 328 00:19:13,781 --> 00:19:18,701 that we're still better at doing the early stage and not so great at the, 329 00:19:18,701 --> 00:19:21,311 you know, scaling up side of things. 330 00:19:21,311 --> 00:19:25,016 So getting it from tier level one up to eight, seven eighths, 331 00:19:25,036 --> 00:19:27,916 and then it seems to need a U.S. 332 00:19:27,936 --> 00:19:33,696 or maybe Germany or France or something to scale something to a really large scale. 333 00:19:33,706 --> 00:19:38,326 So one end is quite good, but it doesn't seem to be able to get across that valley 334 00:19:38,326 --> 00:19:40,716 of death into the next big scale up. 335 00:19:40,741 --> 00:19:44,921 And I think you make a good point around SEIS and EIS is a really great 336 00:19:44,921 --> 00:19:47,331 scheme and actually I think the Tony Blair Institute have put out some 337 00:19:47,351 --> 00:19:51,191 interesting stuff on this recently just saying we need to effectively continue 338 00:19:51,191 --> 00:19:56,861 that virtuous continuum of capital by incentivising people and even perhaps go 339 00:19:56,861 --> 00:20:01,151 as far as, and again lots of countries do this, incentivising UK pension 340 00:20:01,151 --> 00:20:06,166 funds to invest for tax breaks in UK based technology so that's a virtuous 341 00:20:06,166 --> 00:20:09,406 cycle and it's not a kind of giveaway. 342 00:20:09,426 --> 00:20:12,756 It's in order to create that virtuous ecosystem within 343 00:20:12,756 --> 00:20:14,666 the UK that benefits the UK. 344 00:20:14,666 --> 00:20:19,266 So it's not an expenditure on the kind of lack of tax take, it should be seen 345 00:20:19,266 --> 00:20:20,776 as an investment by the government. 346 00:20:21,671 --> 00:20:24,261 The other problem is, of course, I come from, coming from Australia where 347 00:20:24,261 --> 00:20:28,971 we've only got now 25 million people now from how big it is, compared to 348 00:20:28,971 --> 00:20:30,601 when you look at someone like the U.S. 349 00:20:30,671 --> 00:20:35,271 obviously with the 300 plus and UK obviously here with was 350 00:20:35,271 --> 00:20:36,551 80 now or something like that. 351 00:20:37,141 --> 00:20:42,591 But then we've just, you know, made the Brexit friction higher in dealing with 352 00:20:42,611 --> 00:20:46,931 the other big market that's right next to us and so I can also see why a lot 353 00:20:46,931 --> 00:20:50,461 of people go to the US because it's, I'm not gonna say it's easier, it's 354 00:20:50,461 --> 00:20:54,721 just, you know, if you write instruction manual in English and you're selling 355 00:20:54,726 --> 00:20:57,901 in California, which is the fifth biggest market in the world, isn't it? 356 00:20:58,291 --> 00:21:01,621 And then you can just take that to the states nearby without having to change 357 00:21:01,626 --> 00:21:06,281 all, not too many of your rules as far as I understand and therefore it's easier to 358 00:21:06,281 --> 00:21:08,541 incrementally grow in that first stage. 359 00:21:08,541 --> 00:21:13,041 So you're going from a place as big as the UK and you're expanding out quite fast 360 00:21:13,041 --> 00:21:16,961 if you can to a market that's then four times as big or whatever the number is, 361 00:21:17,391 --> 00:21:19,111 whereas we're slowing that down over here. 362 00:21:19,111 --> 00:21:24,366 So It's sort of logical that you can't scale up something as easily from the 363 00:21:24,366 --> 00:21:28,806 UK, unless, like I went back to that silly idea about surfboards, you can 364 00:21:28,806 --> 00:21:30,196 sell more surfboards in Australia. 365 00:21:30,196 --> 00:21:31,956 So what's that same area? 366 00:21:31,956 --> 00:21:35,396 We're pretty good at pharmaceuticals here for example, and obviously 367 00:21:35,396 --> 00:21:39,186 the university has a big chemistry and pharmaceutical side of things. 368 00:21:39,196 --> 00:21:40,111 So there are, I don't know. 369 00:21:40,151 --> 00:21:43,231 areas that we seem to be able to scale up, in some way. 370 00:21:43,291 --> 00:21:45,801 Not quite sure, I haven't sat down and tried to figure out why some 371 00:21:45,801 --> 00:21:50,801 things can scale and other things can't, but certainly high value, low 372 00:21:50,801 --> 00:21:53,301 volume products that seem to be okay. 373 00:21:53,381 --> 00:21:57,081 But then yeah, there's others that don't seem to be able to scale up from here. 374 00:21:57,726 --> 00:22:00,456 And it's interesting because coming back to where we started the conversation, 375 00:22:00,466 --> 00:22:06,436 thinking about the cluster, you know, potentially when you have that experience 376 00:22:06,436 --> 00:22:10,206 of how to scale something and the ambition, because that talent has been 377 00:22:10,206 --> 00:22:13,356 able to stay here, because there is an existing cluster, even though, as you 378 00:22:13,356 --> 00:22:17,336 say, the friction is greater now because it's incumbent here, it's harder to move 379 00:22:17,346 --> 00:22:20,456 it perhaps than it is just to stay put. 380 00:22:20,736 --> 00:22:25,716 But, you know, something that I hear a lot about is that scaling talent isn't 381 00:22:25,726 --> 00:22:30,596 here for many other industries and so people's experience is that they need 382 00:22:30,596 --> 00:22:35,046 to go elsewhere because they literally don't have a playbook, or because the 383 00:22:35,056 --> 00:22:39,666 playbook is to go into another larger same language domestic market, i.e. 384 00:22:39,686 --> 00:22:44,776 the U.S., that sort of automatic moving and listing in America and 385 00:22:44,776 --> 00:22:48,526 then the lack of recycled talent that has the experience of that journey. 386 00:22:48,526 --> 00:22:51,606 So it's all a complete kind of, yeah, catch 22. 387 00:22:51,786 --> 00:22:56,036 I mean, they talk a lot about smartphones in saying that, could you 388 00:22:56,056 --> 00:22:58,056 build a smartphone in America now? 389 00:22:58,106 --> 00:23:03,536 I'm not sure if you could because there's such depth to, I think they call 390 00:23:03,536 --> 00:23:04,866 it the creative commons, don't they? 391 00:23:04,876 --> 00:23:10,456 The tiers down below the main person, OEM who makes the main product like the phone. 392 00:23:10,806 --> 00:23:14,136 We're not having the people who know how to do the glass or the other things. 393 00:23:14,136 --> 00:23:16,836 It makes it harder to then scale something up. 394 00:23:16,836 --> 00:23:19,316 So obviously that's why there's a lot of discussion in the U. 395 00:23:19,316 --> 00:23:19,456 S. 396 00:23:19,456 --> 00:23:21,576 to bring back parts of the value chain. 397 00:23:21,956 --> 00:23:24,746 So you've got half a chance to scale some of those things. 398 00:23:25,326 --> 00:23:30,026 Obviously we've still got some car companies here in the UK, but 399 00:23:30,046 --> 00:23:31,816 there is more of them in the US. 400 00:23:31,816 --> 00:23:34,716 Although, you know, you watch Tesla, it's still been difficult for them to 401 00:23:34,716 --> 00:23:39,026 scale up something even in the US and they've almost gone bankrupt a few 402 00:23:39,026 --> 00:23:40,316 times, haven't they, on the way there. 403 00:23:41,016 --> 00:23:43,666 but if it weren't for Elon, they probably wouldn't have got there 404 00:23:43,666 --> 00:23:46,866 in the end and there's a lot of others struggling to get there. 405 00:23:46,866 --> 00:23:51,916 So even in the US, it's hard to scale up in some areas because there's not enough 406 00:23:52,076 --> 00:23:57,271 of the, yeah, the supply chain that's got its expertise nearby, let's say. 407 00:23:58,231 --> 00:23:59,631 So that's a curiosity. 408 00:23:59,631 --> 00:24:02,951 I'm not quite sure what you do about that exactly to, because then you have 409 00:24:02,951 --> 00:24:06,171 to think about picking winners and you know, what should we be scaling 410 00:24:06,171 --> 00:24:09,931 up in here and what shouldn't we be scaling up and what works best? 411 00:24:09,931 --> 00:24:12,711 I mean, I know the government does a pretty good job at it in terms 412 00:24:12,711 --> 00:24:16,861 of, there's a lot of things with Innovate UK and KTNs, the knowledge 413 00:24:16,861 --> 00:24:21,141 transfer networks working on which sectors that we should be looking at. 414 00:24:21,261 --> 00:24:23,551 So high value manufacturing and those kinds of things 415 00:24:23,551 --> 00:24:25,511 certainly do get a lot of help. 416 00:24:25,696 --> 00:24:29,206 There's a fair amount of research in batteries and all those elements 417 00:24:29,206 --> 00:24:34,396 which we see in F1, but then scaling it is the bit, I'm not sure we, the 418 00:24:34,576 --> 00:24:37,756 British fault didn't, I don't know where the British fault's up to now. 419 00:24:38,096 --> 00:24:40,626 I don't think it's very good. 420 00:24:40,766 --> 00:24:41,246 Yes. 421 00:24:41,936 --> 00:24:42,396 So... 422 00:24:42,406 --> 00:24:43,996 Aren't they being courted by America? 423 00:24:43,996 --> 00:24:46,176 Wasn't that the last thing with the IRA? 424 00:24:46,176 --> 00:24:49,916 Yeah, the Inflation Reduction Act suddenly looking quite appealing to go elsewhere. 425 00:24:49,921 --> 00:24:53,561 So one of those big scale ups that could have happened is also struggling. 426 00:24:53,561 --> 00:24:57,901 So, but that means you've got to have the natural volume to support, etc. 427 00:24:57,901 --> 00:24:59,361 So it's complicated, I suppose. 428 00:24:59,506 --> 00:24:59,826 Yeah. 429 00:25:00,086 --> 00:25:03,991 I mean, the message I'm hearing is that, you know, and one sees this, that we're 430 00:25:03,991 --> 00:25:07,201 very good at creating sort of, I think it was somebody said, it might have even been 431 00:25:07,201 --> 00:25:11,311 Kwasi Kartang, you know, that we create the nursery bed for the rest of the world 432 00:25:11,311 --> 00:25:14,381 to then come and kind of cherry pick our best ideas and take them elsewhere and 433 00:25:14,381 --> 00:25:17,881 scale them and obviously, it's not the worst place to be, we're still coming 434 00:25:17,881 --> 00:25:21,776 up with great ideas, but we're not then reaping the benefits at the other end 435 00:25:21,786 --> 00:25:25,736 of it because they've gone elsewhere, relocated, that talent has gone elsewhere, 436 00:25:26,056 --> 00:25:31,136 and that entrepreneurial experience that we want recycled here is also not here. 437 00:25:31,696 --> 00:25:36,426 Taking a slightly different step, I'd love to hear a bit more about your experience 438 00:25:36,656 --> 00:25:41,356 of StreetDrone and where you guys are up to and what the sort of completely other 439 00:25:41,356 --> 00:25:45,946 end of the spectrum at the moment, what the opportunities and hurdles that you're 440 00:25:45,946 --> 00:25:47,186 seeing on a more day to day level are. 441 00:25:47,621 --> 00:25:50,521 Yeah, so with StreetDrone, we've actually benefited from a 442 00:25:50,521 --> 00:25:51,811 lot of the government funding. 443 00:25:51,811 --> 00:25:57,131 So, Innovate UK through CKEV and Zenzic, which are the groups that look after the 444 00:25:57,381 --> 00:26:00,681 connected and autonomous vehicles, you know, they've been very supportive there. 445 00:26:00,826 --> 00:26:04,846 We've been running a project up at Nissan in Sunderland, so the biggest 446 00:26:05,596 --> 00:26:07,376 manufacturing plant I think in the UK. 447 00:26:07,376 --> 00:26:09,921 And in fairness, the government have done a lot to keep Nissan here. 448 00:26:10,031 --> 00:26:13,641 I mean, you know, even as a relative lay person, I've seen that in the newsflows. 449 00:26:13,641 --> 00:26:14,291 So, yeah. 450 00:26:14,731 --> 00:26:17,701 So that's true, yes, and so we've been running an autonomous truck 451 00:26:18,031 --> 00:26:22,171 and now scaling up to four trucks up there as part of the next 452 00:26:22,171 --> 00:26:24,211 project, which is, called V-CAL. 453 00:26:24,611 --> 00:26:28,731 Funnily enough, that was actually sponsored by DCMS, so that was 454 00:26:28,761 --> 00:26:33,161 because they were looking at 5G and so the first truck was operating, 455 00:26:33,171 --> 00:26:34,361 they call it tele-operation. 456 00:26:34,381 --> 00:26:38,901 So being controlled over a 5G network, a private 5G network, so there was 457 00:26:38,901 --> 00:26:42,811 a lot of research and work done there to successfully drive a truck 458 00:26:42,811 --> 00:26:46,901 around, first tele-operated and as a second stage autonomously or a 459 00:26:46,901 --> 00:26:49,611 combination of the two as we scale up. 460 00:26:49,961 --> 00:26:52,831 What's interesting there is that actually we've had our first, I'll 461 00:26:52,831 --> 00:26:56,851 call it, export because we're now doing a similar project in Rotterdam. 462 00:26:56,861 --> 00:27:01,181 So from the export point of view, we've taken that knowledge and technology 463 00:27:01,211 --> 00:27:05,931 over to Rotterdam and currently running another truck over there as we scale up. 464 00:27:06,361 --> 00:27:09,651 It is still difficult though, to raise this next finance. 465 00:27:09,691 --> 00:27:13,941 We've obviously been talking all around Europe and US, but it's 466 00:27:13,941 --> 00:27:18,176 quite hard and slow process, especially with the, I suppose, 467 00:27:18,176 --> 00:27:20,086 macro-environment as it is at the moment. 468 00:27:20,086 --> 00:27:22,491 Yeah, it's not an easy fundraising environment, but what are the 469 00:27:22,491 --> 00:27:25,571 main, not objections, I'm trying to think, but what are the main kind of 470 00:27:26,371 --> 00:27:29,451 questions that you come up with that people can't satisfy themselves with? 471 00:27:29,561 --> 00:27:33,376 I think a lot to do with the technology risk still to be solved, which 472 00:27:33,376 --> 00:27:35,326 is when we see things in the U.S. 473 00:27:35,886 --> 00:27:38,986 with companies like Cruise having difficulty in San Francisco. 474 00:27:39,356 --> 00:27:43,366 Now we're trying to allay those fears by saying, look, we're running off highway. 475 00:27:43,366 --> 00:27:47,066 So meaning private roads, which mean we have different rules, we're running 476 00:27:47,066 --> 00:27:51,236 at slow speed, so we're taking it sensibly and slowly I suppose is the 477 00:27:51,236 --> 00:27:54,791 difference, but the sort of scale of funding is different in the U.S. 478 00:27:54,811 --> 00:27:59,911 and so there's a comparison to say well if Cruise is spending this much money in 479 00:27:59,911 --> 00:28:03,541 the U.S., Why don't you need that much money and we're saying well we're trying 480 00:28:03,541 --> 00:28:08,271 to minimise what we're trying to achieve in order to minimise the amount we need. 481 00:28:08,791 --> 00:28:12,151 Certainly the government's supporting the supply chain side of things. 482 00:28:12,151 --> 00:28:16,871 So also mitigating risk by having more of a, trying to help create a cluster again, 483 00:28:16,871 --> 00:28:22,671 actually, of companies around the UK so that we're all cross fertilising in a way. 484 00:28:22,671 --> 00:28:24,991 So we shouldn't be all doing the same thing over and over, 485 00:28:25,361 --> 00:28:26,731 that's pointless in some ways. 486 00:28:26,731 --> 00:28:27,721 Sharing knowledge. 487 00:28:27,981 --> 00:28:28,211 Yeah. 488 00:28:28,211 --> 00:28:28,801 Sharing or... 489 00:28:28,811 --> 00:28:32,951 Creating a natural portfolio head to the risk for all the investors. 490 00:28:32,951 --> 00:28:36,331 Because at the end of the day, when you look at F1, one of the risk minimisations 491 00:28:36,351 --> 00:28:40,461 coming here is that there's a supply chain that can support you and so when 492 00:28:40,471 --> 00:28:46,351 we started up at Formula One team in, back in 2005-6, we knew that it's going 493 00:28:46,351 --> 00:28:49,691 to be way, well, almost impossible if we did it anywhere else in the world. 494 00:28:49,721 --> 00:28:53,526 But if we did it in Oxfordshire, it made it less than impossible, it made 495 00:28:53,526 --> 00:28:55,226 it just difficult, but that was fun. 496 00:28:55,226 --> 00:29:00,826 So I think that's the same thing, the government and certainly look, working 497 00:29:00,826 --> 00:29:05,676 hard on regulation because obviously the basis of our law is different to Europe. 498 00:29:05,676 --> 00:29:09,706 So we can approach the legal framework slightly differently. 499 00:29:09,706 --> 00:29:11,806 Hurrah an opportunity at last! 500 00:29:12,121 --> 00:29:18,521 Yes, so StreetDrone's been supporting the law commission and others to, BSI 501 00:29:18,521 --> 00:29:22,571 and others to work on the regulations, especially we're trying to help frame 502 00:29:22,891 --> 00:29:26,671 the ones that for off highway for ourselves, although we are also doing 503 00:29:26,671 --> 00:29:30,881 work on highway with some of our vehicles and some of the partners around the UK. 504 00:29:30,881 --> 00:29:35,011 So there's a lot going on, but there's a long way to go and having 505 00:29:35,371 --> 00:29:39,886 obviously a stronger in terms of, the VCs, et cetera, that are into this 506 00:29:39,916 --> 00:29:43,336 area and so the government's doing a lot to support, but they can only 507 00:29:43,336 --> 00:29:45,716 go so far, until you go back to it. 508 00:29:45,716 --> 00:29:48,506 And does this fall into the remit of sort of the UK infrastructure 509 00:29:48,506 --> 00:29:50,276 bank or is it outside of it? 510 00:29:50,446 --> 00:29:53,496 I am not the expert on those ones, but yeah, that'd be great. 511 00:29:54,956 --> 00:29:55,586 We'll talk after! 512 00:29:56,166 --> 00:30:01,186 Certainly, there's a number of, big startups in Japan and in Europe 513 00:30:01,186 --> 00:30:04,686 that have been funded by the, and I would be, I may be wrong, but 514 00:30:04,686 --> 00:30:06,206 I believe ECB and other things. 515 00:30:06,206 --> 00:30:10,866 So yes, there is a possibility that is something we haven't been able to unlock 516 00:30:10,926 --> 00:30:12,906 whereas others have around the world. 517 00:30:13,846 --> 00:30:17,106 Say certainly one of our Japanese, don't know about competitors, but 518 00:30:17,106 --> 00:30:21,146 certainly someone in this industry has been supported by that type of fund 519 00:30:21,726 --> 00:30:25,706 and then of course we talk about the Chinese side of things, which obviously 520 00:30:25,706 --> 00:30:30,291 get funded in a different way and have quite a lot of strong support behind 521 00:30:30,291 --> 00:30:32,231 them to compete around the world. 522 00:30:32,231 --> 00:30:33,261 So we are coming... 523 00:30:33,321 --> 00:30:35,401 Well, they're not playing on an electoral cycle, are they? 524 00:30:35,441 --> 00:30:40,751 No, so we are doing some, or we're proposing some solutions, RFPs, 525 00:30:40,761 --> 00:30:43,871 where we know the competitors are Chinese and so that'll be interesting 526 00:30:43,871 --> 00:30:45,151 to see how that would play out. 527 00:30:45,151 --> 00:30:46,091 Really interesting. 528 00:30:46,261 --> 00:30:50,441 So they'll be supported I'm sure, in certain ways and so we'll see if we can... 529 00:30:50,571 --> 00:30:55,166 It comes back to this thing of a sort of, it's not a level playing field and 530 00:30:55,166 --> 00:30:59,586 yeah, sometimes by being the most law abiding, and in some ways it's the best 531 00:30:59,586 --> 00:31:03,606 thing about Britain is the common law is why people want to do business here. 532 00:31:03,636 --> 00:31:04,206 Yes, exactly. 533 00:31:04,206 --> 00:31:06,976 But when you hold yourself to higher account than everyone else, it does 534 00:31:06,986 --> 00:31:08,886 make business perhaps quite tricky. 535 00:31:08,921 --> 00:31:09,331 Yes. 536 00:31:09,866 --> 00:31:10,296 Interesting. 537 00:31:11,221 --> 00:31:13,821 Mark, thank you, this has been such an interesting and 538 00:31:13,821 --> 00:31:15,091 broad ranging conversation. 539 00:31:15,091 --> 00:31:17,941 I've really enjoyed it, and particularly hearing the two experiences you've 540 00:31:17,941 --> 00:31:21,461 had from a much larger kind of part of the motorsports cluster 541 00:31:21,731 --> 00:31:24,511 and then your experiences as an entrepreneur coming out of Oxford. 542 00:31:24,781 --> 00:31:26,681 Is there anything else that you particularly kind of wanted 543 00:31:26,731 --> 00:31:28,061 to add before we round out? 544 00:31:28,121 --> 00:31:29,761 Because I've really enjoyed this. 545 00:31:29,771 --> 00:31:31,681 No, I think it's been a great conversation. 546 00:31:32,031 --> 00:31:36,671 you can tell from some of the approaches, I would love to figure out how to join 547 00:31:36,671 --> 00:31:41,541 the cluster of motorsports up better with the university and startup side of 548 00:31:41,541 --> 00:31:43,751 things, that's been a bit of a passion. 549 00:31:43,761 --> 00:31:48,756 Haven't seen it work as well as I'd like to, maybe over the last twenty years 550 00:31:48,756 --> 00:31:52,226 or so here that feels like there's got to be a way of joining up this very 551 00:31:52,226 --> 00:31:56,026 unique, now in on the TV everywhere, Drive to Survive and everything... 552 00:31:56,491 --> 00:31:56,741 Yeah. 553 00:31:57,136 --> 00:32:00,256 ...Sport that's just around the corner and many of the people live 554 00:32:00,256 --> 00:32:04,296 in Oxford and around Oxford and in certainly Oxfordshire, as well. 555 00:32:04,296 --> 00:32:07,216 So that's one of those things where I'd love to join up all these bits of 556 00:32:07,216 --> 00:32:10,826 the puzzle that we've been discussing in a much more fluid way, I suppose 557 00:32:10,826 --> 00:32:14,316 and reduce some of that friction of the Brexit side of things would make 558 00:32:14,316 --> 00:32:17,946 it way easier for both the motorsport cluster and also the startup. 559 00:32:17,946 --> 00:32:19,211 Yeah, both the large and the small. 560 00:32:19,236 --> 00:32:21,836 Yes, see if we can find ways of joining those things up. 561 00:32:21,961 --> 00:32:25,261 No, and listen, I think that's a very worthy and probably a good note, a 562 00:32:25,261 --> 00:32:28,821 positive note to end on is that there's more opportunity and obviously the 563 00:32:28,821 --> 00:32:32,421 goal of this podcast is partly to have these conversations in a public 564 00:32:32,421 --> 00:32:37,261 domain so that anyone that might be able to add thoughts or practical 565 00:32:37,261 --> 00:32:38,931 solutions can basically get in touch. 566 00:32:38,931 --> 00:32:40,991 So we would encourage that to anyone listening. 567 00:32:41,186 --> 00:32:41,726 Sounds good. 568 00:32:41,961 --> 00:32:42,401 Wonderful. 569 00:32:42,461 --> 00:32:43,061 Thank you, Mark. 570 00:32:43,611 --> 00:32:46,351 Thanks for listening to this episode of Oxford+ presented 571 00:32:46,371 --> 00:32:47,771 by me, Susannah de Jager. 572 00:32:48,251 --> 00:32:51,661 If you want to stay up to date with all things Oxford+, please visit our website 573 00:32:51,711 --> 00:32:56,501 OxfordPlus.co.uk and sign up to our newsletter so you never miss an update. 574 00:32:57,101 --> 00:33:00,271 Oxford+ was made in partnership with Mishcon de Reya and is produced 575 00:33:00,271 --> 00:33:01,921 and edited by Story Ninety Four.