Guest blog: AI in the automotive sector - a UK start-up success story

Sometimes the smallest detail can have a profound impact on product design. An obscure correlation hidden away among vast chunks of data can hold the key to revolutionising the next generation of a product. And yet spotting these correlations with traditional methods can be virtually impossible sometimes.

In recent years, engineers and researchers have begun to tap into the potential of machine learning algorithms for spotting these hidden trends. What was once an academic topic has emerged as a viable development tool that can dramatically accelerate the product development process.

In some cases, machine learning can slash the requirement for physical testing by as much as 90 percent, by enabling the engineering team to home in on the most promising areas of development.

Dr Richard Ahlfeld worked on this concept as part of his PhD at Imperial College London and NASA. 

It was this experience that led to him founding Monolith AI, the first ever software company to be accepted onto the APC’s accelerator programme - now known as Mobilise.

Ahlfeld and his colleagues have developed a software platform that provides a user-friendly interface for training machine learning algorithms and analysing their results. Its potential applications range from the design of shampoo bottles to space rockets, but some of the most exciting are to be found in the automotive industry. Here, complex data from different testing sources can be used to predict a new vehicle’s behaviour on the track before even having to build it.

Mobilise provided a total of £104,500 of grant support, without the need to forfeit any equity or give away any intellectual property. But perhaps more valuable was access to the APC’s network of automotive clients, including McLaren. This proved invaluable in identifying routes to market and opening the doors to potential clients that a software developer would not typically have had the opportunity of engaging with.

Initially they found it difficult to convey how problems could be solved with AI and were unclear how to communicate to customers that they had issues which were opportunities for the technology.

Now Monolith really understands what it is good at and where it can deliver value, and the product is much easier to sell.

Everyone has anomalies in data that they struggle to find, and they can help you do that, very quickly.

“We were the first software company to go through the programme, so I think it was a step into the unknown to a certain extent, but it’s certainly paid off. At the end of the programme I had about a dozen employees, £2 million in funding, and some of the top UK automotive brands working with me on early-stage prototypes.” comments Ahlfeld.

Joining the accelerator was just the beginning. The start-up was able to spend months in McLaren’s test labs looking in detail at how you develop a car, what the bottlenecks and the pain points are.

Two years later Monolith had £10.5 million in funding and is growing at an exponential rate. With contracts signed for major OEMs including BMW, and Honda, it is going even further with international expansion to the US and China. “The demand for our solution in battery testing is out stripping our capability to actually deliver the pipeline. I think I've got every automotive company in the world currently saying we would love to use AI to get EVs to market faster!”

Mobilise is a structured early-stage accelerator programme that supports ambitious micro, small and medium-size enterprises, start-ups or university spinouts, that are developing innovative automotive-related early-stage, zero-emission or Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) technologies, products, services or solutions to accelerate the transition to a safer, smarter, more sustainable future.

Mobilise offers a unique blend of grant funding, mentoring, and networking opportunities within the mobility sector, helping businesses to create robust strategies and business models and accelerate their route to market. The programme builds on the award-winning features of the Technology Developer Accelerator Programme (TDAP) and combines them with the technical validation opportunities currently provided by Zenzic’s CAM Scale-Up UK initiative; namely unparalleled access to an extensive network of world-leading Testbed facilities.

If you would like to join the growing ranks of successful start-ups, SMEs and spinouts that have benefited from grant funding, business mentoring and networking opportunities, contact the Mobilise team mobilise@apcuk.co.uk.