Innovators hitch a ride on drive for national security

Technology and the Arts), which backs innovative start-ups, put in almost £100,000 in return for a small stake. This was enough to make a prototype device to show in the United States. Making inroads in the U.S. market, however, is notoriously difficult if you are not a prime contractor with an established route to market and a record of large-scale manufacturing. Symetrica recognized this early on and deliberately targeted prime contractors with which to join forces from the start. Its first foray into the United States, though, did not go to plan. The company teamed up with Corus, the steel group, to bid on a government contract. Against considerable odds, the consortium was chosen as one of five to develop prototypes in 2005. This initial success held risks: If it was going to make all the necessary parts, Symetrica realized, it would run into cashflow problems, so the founders stumped up £100,000 of their own money. “It was not an easy decision but we were all confident in each other and what we could achieve,” says Davies. The move paid off in that it helped to convince Close Invoice Finance, which assists small companies through their cashflow problems, to provide some much-needed support. Ultimately, however, Symetrica failed to secure what would have been a much bigger manufacturing contract.

Nevertheless, says Davies, the experience helped the company establish “a degree of credibility across the board”. Soon after, Symetrica teamed up with U.K. engineering conglomerate Smiths — thanks in part to Davies’s network of contacts — to bid on another U.S. government contract, this time to provide handheld radiation detectors. The joint bid was successful and, although Symetrica is much the junior partner, the deal could prove transformational.

Getting the right prime contractor to help back the technology, whether for a particular contract or more generally, has also proved crucial to Aurix, a Malvern-based spin-out from Qinetiq, the former U.K. government research agency. Aurix has developed a speech recognition engine that can be used to search large volumes of audio, recorded or even in real time. It can be used to search and analyze the unstructured, natural speech of conversation. “We have come full circle,” says Aurix chief executive James Kirby. The technology was first developed for use in verbal commands by fighter pilots before Aurix recognized its potential for “audio-mining” by consumer sector clients, such as call centers, which use