Fireside Chat with Huw Hampson-Jones from Oxis Energy
We were delighted to welcome Huw Hampson-Jones from Oxis Energy for an ATI Boeing Accelerator fireside chat last week. It was great to hear first-hand about Huw’s learnings from the aerospace industry and their current flight testing in the U.S. with Bye Aerospace, expected to produce the world’s first e-Aircraft. Huw also highlighted Oxis Energy’s strategic partnerships - they’ve partnered with the likes of Safran, Umicore, and Arkema. He shared how they’ve gone about selecting the right markets and the importance of patenting your technology.
Here are some of our key takeaways from Huw’s conversation with the team and our audience of Cohort 1 startups and the wider aerospace ecosystem:
On talking to your customers and refining your product
“Let’s say you’re a young startup, you’re 18 months old. You have a concept, you have an idea for a project. You may have an initial target market for that project. My advice would be to go out there and to talk to people, because if you have a view of the product, surely you must have a view as to who you think may be interested in this project because of the benefits that accrue from using that product. I very strongly argue that you must work through those benefits and test those benefit propositions with a live customer. When you go out to your customers with all the benefits and great technology that your engineers are telling you about, you’ll hear “I buy that, I buy that, I buy that. I don’t buy that. This is your problem and this is your problem.”
“It’s no secret, years ago, when I first went out, cyclability was a key problem with Lithium Sulfur — the thing that strikes is that you now have to understand the need to overcome cyclability which is what we have been working on for many years and progressing in. Once you go out there to speak to your customer, you take it on the chin, believe me. You’ll get out of some meetings utterly disappointed and sometimes thinking, “Oh, hell! How do I sort this?” But! You can go back and tell your engineering team, “Hey: this is the feedback you have to listen to!” ”
I very strongly argue that you must work through those benefits and test those benefit propositions with a live customer.
On finding the right investors and building strategic partnerships
“In our early days, 2010 through to 2015, we were still in research and development mode. Then, in 2016, as the technology evolved, the company had reached the point where it had to move up a gear. We ran our first POCs with Airbus and started working with larger companies… We needed strategic investors because we needed the transition from R&D to commercialisation, and we knew that it wasn’t going to take just one year or two years. It was going to take several.
The character of the company required backgrounds of the likes of Umicore, Arkema, and Safran to be our key partners in developing the technology. The board members for Oxis that came from these organisations were incredibly experienced. In the case of Umicore we have a battery expert which is one of Europe’s foremost experts. In the case of Arkema, we have a board member who is an expert on materials being used in material deposition like nanotubes. And then of course with Safran we have, if not the world’s, the foremost experts on aircraft and aviation in general.”
We needed strategic investors because we needed the transition from R&D to commercialization, and we knew that wasn’t going to take one year or two years.
On the challenge of balancing the diversity of product with the maturity of product
“The last thing we want, as a business, is a multiplicity of formats of the battery. Most people will be familiar with cylindrical batteries — the ones we find in our laptops, power tools, and cars — and the problem with them is that they’re very heavy (because of the casing).
“Oxis Energy decided to come in with a pouch cell battery that is different and more efficient. What you can’t do is settle on one battery and say to your customer, “take it or leave it”. What you must do is to decide which pouch and format to focus on, making sure chemistry inside the technology is very similar in manufacturing design. This way, you will be able to design a pouch cell that can be used for aviation i.e. high altitude pseudo-satellite and automotive i.e. the electric bus. The pouch cell for the bus is fundamentally the same in design as the satellite, but it changes in detail.
“You try to maintain those choices across multiple applications. For example, the cell that we designed for the bus is equally suited for the truck, yet electric buses and electric trucks are two different vehicles. The same cell can be used for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL). The same cell can be used for a naval vessel. My advice to any company: try to make sure you can use the same set of circumstances for multiple applications because then your unit volume goes up and your unit cost comes down.”
A big thanks to Huw for joining our fireside chat and also to our wonderful attendees for their great questions and engagement. Sign up to our mailing list to stay up-to-date with the latest ecosystem events.
About Huw Hampson-Johnson
Huw joined OXIS Energy in April 2010. He graduated with a degree in Political Theory and Government from the University of Wales, Swansea. In 1990, he joined Siemens where he eventually became Senior Vice President, Line of Business Telecommunication for Siemens Business Services AG. Having worked for Siemens for 10 years, Huw moved to work in Sweden where he specialised in high technology company development for European venture capitalists. He was involved in successfully leading the trade sales of both iD2 Technologies AB and Mobeon for $250m and 350m SEK respectively.
About Oxis Energy
Oxis Energy is a UK-based startup developing innovative Lithium Sulfur [Li-S] battery chemistry that will revolutionise the rechargeable battery market. With a theoretical energy density 5 times greater than Li-ion, OXIS patented technology is light, safe and is suitable for a wide range of sectors, including aviation, aeronautical, defence, and electric vehicles (buses, trucks, and light commercial vehicles). Based at the Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire, Oxis has been at the forefront of researching Li-S batteries since 2004.
For more information about the programme, please contact the ATI Boeing Accelerator team:
Gabi Matic — gm@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/gabrielamatic
Wil Benton — wb@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/fatkidonfire
Ksenia Kurileva — kk@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/kseniakurileva
