Technology start-up creator Cambridge Consultants has spun off Aveillant and attracted investment for the new venture, which is developing 3D holographic radar that aims to improve aviation safety.

The exact amount has not been disclosed, but a statement says a multimillion-pound investment has been committed from a consortium including Cambridge Consultants, venture firm DFJ Esprit and the wind industry fund Aviation Investment Fund Company.

Aveillant has developed technology, called holographic infill radar, which can distinguish between whirring wind turbine blades and other moving objects. Currently, radar systems may mistake the blades of a wind turbine as being moving objects, possibly other aircraft. The concerns have led to the delay of about 40 wind farm projects in the UK because of objections from the aviation sector, according to the UKTI.

Aveillant’s business will be to supply the technology, equipment and services that will reconcile wind turbines with radar. The founders of Aveillant, Gordon Oswald and Craig Webster, from Cambridge Consultants, will join the new venture as part of the first round of funding.

Ray Edgson, ventures director at Cambridge Consultants, comments, ‘The unique radar offering is a result of our extensive work with aviation and wind energy stakeholders to create a technical solution which fully meets their requirements.’

Alan Duncan, managing partner at DFJ Esprit, continues, ‘The demand for renewable energy is a global one, with governments around the world setting ambitious renewable energy targets. Aveillant provides us with an opportunity to invest in an industry leading 3D radar and a services business capable of unlocking the global potential of thousands of wind turbines, and the millions of units of renewable energy they will produce.’

Cambridge Consultants has created more than 20 companies in the past 50 years.

So far, the U.K. has been the 'in' country. "By any qualitative measure, the U.K. still leads Europe," says Gary Clements, an international technology promoter with the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry. The Thatcher government's encouragement of entrepreneurialism in the 1980s stimulated the creation of a generation of British biotech companies, many of which still survive and even thrive. Indeed, over two-thirds of Europe's biotechnology companies whose stocks are publicly traded are British. "Venture capital is much more developed in the U.K. than elsewhere in Europe," explains Powlett Smith of Ernst & Young. "We have a stock market that is the biggest outside America. And the political environment and links with the United States helped."
As biotech's business image has risen, so has interest in starting up new clusters for emerging companies. Several British biotechnology companies have set up shop in the science parks created a decade ago. Regions throughout the U.K. are now fighting hard to attract both capital and companies.
Britain's route to success in biotechnology is not the only one. Germany has parlayed a unique government-inspired initiative into second place in Europe's biotechnology league. Concerned that the country risked failure in commercial biotechnology, the German federal government set up a competition among the nation's regions in 1996. The goal: to create the best environment for the commercialization of biotechnology, by using monies from the federal government and regional governments, as well as persuasion.
The competition produced far more winners than losers. For while only four "BioRegions" -- centered on Cologne, Heidelberg, Munich and Jena -- received federal funds for winning the competition, the exercise showed that other regions had the ambience and outlook to attract biotechnology companies. "Some of the non-winner regions had dramatic developments." says Kindervater. "It's like catching up to the runners ahead of you in a race." Thus Jena, in the East German state of Thuringia, is becoming a significant center for small biotechnology companies. "We are told we are where the biotechnology center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, was 10 years ago," says Kindervater.
Other European nations have joined the trail that leads to biotech success. "There have been a lot of national initiatives like Germany's BioRegions," says Brandys.
Two years ago, "the French government realized that it needed to support a biotech industry," says Donny Strosberg, dean of the biochemistry graduate school at the University of Paris and vice president of the lobbying organization France Biotech. "It has now proposed new laws, tax measures, and support for people who will leave the university system temporarily to start up companies in incubators."
Life scientists in Scandinavian countries have also caught the business bug. "There's a very strong move toward entrepreneurialism in this region," says B±rge Diderichsen, director of corporate research for the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. "Many more people studying science are becoming interested in making inventions and business plans." Indeed graduate schools throughout Europe have started to offer life scientists courses in entrepreneurship and business.
In Amsterdam, meanwhile, a new venture capital fund called Life Sciences Partners (LSP) is seeking investment opportunities in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and other parts of Europe. "We have about $50 million and are aiming for $80-100 million," says Tom Schwarz, one of the partners. "LSP is dedicated to human life sciences and biotechnology." While specialty funds of this type are common in the United States, adds investment manager Mark Wegter, "they're a new item in Europe."
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