Derwin
03-10-2008, 06:05 PM
IanBruce (http://www.flytheroad.com/)
Administrator (http://flytheroad.com/blog/forums/profile.php?id=128)
Hi people,
Sorry for the delay (where have I heard that before?) -- but it's been a busy past few weeks. For starters, both Howard and I were invited to the Dow Jones VentureOne Summit in Redwood Shores. We'd been selected by Dow Jones' Company as one of the “Top 45 Companies to Watch in 2008”. According to Dow Jones, the venture-backed start-up companies on this list represent "the most interesting and most promising companies in the market today.”
Notice they didn't say "most promising 'green-tech' companies" -- they mean the most promising of all VC-backed companies, in every business sector. The judging was done by a board comprised of leading venture capitalists from Accel, Battery Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, The Mayfield Fund, Menlo Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners, as well as the Wall Street Journal (a Dow Jones company).
Howard also presented at Pipper Jaffray's Third Annual Clean Technology and Renewables Conference in New York City. I was otherwise engaged, but I'm told Howard did an outstanding job.
New employees
We've also had some additions to the company, including an EVP of Engineering, Steve Duffy.
Steve comes to us out of Lotus Engineering, Magna, Jaguar Cars, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Nissan, and Ford Motors. He has over 20 years of experience in automotive design & development, total system engineering, prototype planning & build, program management, plant set-up and production, vehicle accessories, launch evaluation, and product testing & validation.
Steve's been spending the last few weeks getting up to speed, and working with our newly selected, vehicle engineering partners out of Detroit. You heard that correctly: the vehicle that I've said "Detroit would never build"... may actually be built there -- or at least, the first few thousand or so. It's still our intention to set up our own assembly in California sometime in the future.
These have also been some boring internal upgrades: an "internet-based Collaborative Product Development (CPD) platform that tightly integrates product design data with the business processes of the product lifecycle across an enterprise value-chain." Stated more simply, we're simply getting bigger, and responding by getting our collective $#!+ together -- and becoming a far more organized company in the process. It's great to have a wonderful idea, but this is how companies actually succeed.
Build progress
You've probably seen the photos of our "sand rail" hybrid propulsion test-bed. We're now in the process of building our "Alpha" vehicle which integrates the hybrid system into the newly engineered 3-wheel tilting chassis. While not as pretty as the final vehicle, it will mark the first complete systems integration for the VentureOne. This is a critical milestone, and we'll keep you posted on our progress as it occurs.
"C" vs. "D"
Many of you participated in our survey "A new Design in Motoring" last month. In fact, we had a total of over 3,200 responses to our survey (almost 3 times the number of our first survey). Although it was close race, it was pretty clear which design won. I ask again that you be patient -- please don't speculate -- we'll be announcing the result very soon.
Thanks again for all of your continued help and your support. You're the real reason we started this company.
Cheers,
-- Ian
Posted: 2008-03-10 15:24:40
Administrator (http://flytheroad.com/blog/forums/profile.php?id=128)
Hi people,
Sorry for the delay (where have I heard that before?) -- but it's been a busy past few weeks. For starters, both Howard and I were invited to the Dow Jones VentureOne Summit in Redwood Shores. We'd been selected by Dow Jones' Company as one of the “Top 45 Companies to Watch in 2008”. According to Dow Jones, the venture-backed start-up companies on this list represent "the most interesting and most promising companies in the market today.”
Notice they didn't say "most promising 'green-tech' companies" -- they mean the most promising of all VC-backed companies, in every business sector. The judging was done by a board comprised of leading venture capitalists from Accel, Battery Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, The Mayfield Fund, Menlo Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners, as well as the Wall Street Journal (a Dow Jones company).
Howard also presented at Pipper Jaffray's Third Annual Clean Technology and Renewables Conference in New York City. I was otherwise engaged, but I'm told Howard did an outstanding job.
New employees
We've also had some additions to the company, including an EVP of Engineering, Steve Duffy.
Steve comes to us out of Lotus Engineering, Magna, Jaguar Cars, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Nissan, and Ford Motors. He has over 20 years of experience in automotive design & development, total system engineering, prototype planning & build, program management, plant set-up and production, vehicle accessories, launch evaluation, and product testing & validation.
Steve's been spending the last few weeks getting up to speed, and working with our newly selected, vehicle engineering partners out of Detroit. You heard that correctly: the vehicle that I've said "Detroit would never build"... may actually be built there -- or at least, the first few thousand or so. It's still our intention to set up our own assembly in California sometime in the future.
These have also been some boring internal upgrades: an "internet-based Collaborative Product Development (CPD) platform that tightly integrates product design data with the business processes of the product lifecycle across an enterprise value-chain." Stated more simply, we're simply getting bigger, and responding by getting our collective $#!+ together -- and becoming a far more organized company in the process. It's great to have a wonderful idea, but this is how companies actually succeed.
Build progress
You've probably seen the photos of our "sand rail" hybrid propulsion test-bed. We're now in the process of building our "Alpha" vehicle which integrates the hybrid system into the newly engineered 3-wheel tilting chassis. While not as pretty as the final vehicle, it will mark the first complete systems integration for the VentureOne. This is a critical milestone, and we'll keep you posted on our progress as it occurs.
"C" vs. "D"
Many of you participated in our survey "A new Design in Motoring" last month. In fact, we had a total of over 3,200 responses to our survey (almost 3 times the number of our first survey). Although it was close race, it was pretty clear which design won. I ask again that you be patient -- please don't speculate -- we'll be announcing the result very soon.
Thanks again for all of your continued help and your support. You're the real reason we started this company.
Cheers,
-- Ian
Posted: 2008-03-10 15:24:40