Versarien PLC (LON:VRS) Chief Executive Officer Neill Ricketts caught up with DirectorsTalk to discuss the Memorandum of Understanding with Bromley Technologies Ltd
Q1: Now, great news on the MOU, can you tell us how this collaboration came about?
A1: We met Dr Bromley through some interested partners who was looking for a real competitive edge in the competitive sport he takes part in and supports which is Skeleton. He’s a great technologist, he’s a good engineer, he’s working with the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre up in Sheffield and it was a sort of natural link really.
Q2: So can you tell us a bit about Bromley Technologies and Dr Kristian Bromley?
A2: Yes, certainly. Dr Bromley is actually a four time Olympic champion and a great practitioner in his own sport but more importantly to that he’s ex-BAE and a technologist so he’s always looking for a competitive edge or some technology in order to make his sport products stand out in the crowd.
Q3: So what’s going to be the focus of the project?
A3: So what we’re looking at within our business is we need people that can make decisions quickly, can test quickly and we can see the results and there’s nothing better than the sports arena to be able to do that. So the focus of the product or the project in this case is to come up with technology that can be used in any of his products, which are mainly carbon fibre composite products, in order to be able to give him that advantage.
Q4: And what does this mean for Versarien?
A4: Well it’s great for Versarien because it gives us access to the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre up in Sheffield and it enables us to get products to market much quicker. If we were looking at a commercial product it may take us 2 or 3 years whereas something in the sports arena we could get it into market within 6 months, I’m not saying that’s the case here but it gives you an idea of how quickly they can really move if they want to.
Q5: Are there any other areas within the sports arena in which you think Versarien could look at?
A5: I think every part of the sports arena is something really really interesting, the volumes are not huge which suits our current capacity, you know we’re still developing that scale-up technology so we can’t supply on a mass produced basis at the moment but what we can do is give competitors a real advantage and hopefully we’ll be able to see some gold medals out of this.
