“The evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions are choking our planet & placing billions of people in danger.”
António Guterres, Secretary-General United Nations, 9 Aug 21
The Founder, John Moffat, is a retired Major in the Royal Marines.
Having served for 17 years, John joined the Renewable Energy sector hoping to make a small difference.
John has a love of learning, but the academic route has always been a challenge.
This all made sense when John learned he was dyslexic later in life.
His mantra has always been: Failure is not trying and trying and not succeeding is not failing.
John gave up his job to look after the kids so his wife could follow her career and take a job in Abuja, Nigeria.
It was in Nigeria 2018 that he came up with the idea of structural batteries.
After considerable online research, he found no-one was doing structural batteries. Therefore, either it couldn’t be done or it was a great idea.
On return to the UK, John signed up to Cranfield University where he previously studied for a Masters in Defence Administration (MDA) to study for an MSc in Advanced Motorsport Engineering and use his Thesis as an opportunity to prove structural batteries can work.
During his time at Cranfield University, John reconnected with the School of Management to develop his entrepreneurial business skills.
He participated and won an Entrepreneurial weekend and was offered a sponsored space on the Impulse Programme, Maxwell Centre, University of Cambridge. The opportunity was too good to miss.
At the end of the summer in 2021, John had completed his Thesis and proved structural batteries could be done and had successfully completed the Impulse Programme so was well prepared to start his own business. He moved into the Barclays Eagle Lab on Cranfield Campus.
There wasn’t enough money to tackle the challenges independently, so a collaborative approach was taken. By reaching out to some niche vehicle manufacturers, one was keen to add an EV to his vehicle offerings so accepted an offer to collaborate.
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John presented at an Innovation Showcase event organised by the manager of the Barclays Eagle Labs and an aerospace customer approached him to collaborate on developing a hybrid engine.
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Businesses in the Barclays Eagle Labs are also involved. Volador FlyTech is developing a 2-seater eVTOL aircraft for personal use and Space Resources Laboratory are developing a CubeSat, and both agreed to collaborate to explore integrating structural batteries within their products.