1. Complete Technical Feasibility Study
Several hundred windings prototypes were manufactured during Phase 1. These prototypes were built for a dozen early-adopters, in multiple shapes and lengths. They were built with our current beta manufacturing system before being shipped to users all over the world. In conjunction with a verification of the achievable production cost in low-volume (50Ku/yr), an analysis was performed for determining options and requirements associated with high-volume industrial scale production (1Mu/yr).
Multiple meetings and discussions with suppliers and university researchers who have experience in building motors were held from June to August. These discussions resulted in the creation of the preliminary manufacturing flows for the production of windings and of motors. These flows were tested in a lab manufacturing environment.
To succeed in the long-term requires a careful selection of suppliers. Meetings and discussions with multiple potential suppliers were held. Parts were ordered from a dozen of them for the top 7 most critical parts of our solution. The conclusion from this Phase 1 analysis is that we are now ready to enter into a pilot phase with the selected suppliers. This task will be a key pillar of our Phase 2 proposal. Having identified and selected these suppliers, our focus in a next step will be to further reduce individual quality component risks and agree on contractual terms (payment, committed lead time, currency risk...).
2. - Validate Commercial hypothesis
More than 30 new customers were contacted to help us gain a better understanding of the market. In addition to individual interviews, several market studies were obtained to make sure data from objective sources corroborate our assumptions regarding market size and the growth rate. These studies were instrumental in identifying our next commercial targets, prioritizing them by size and assessing the difficulty (or not) of getting in touch with the right contact. These activities enabled the creation of a robust list of key market players, ranked by priority to be used when we launch the next stage of our business development activities in Phase 2.
In parallel, an analyze of the regulatory requirements to ensure compliance has been carried out. General purpose regulatory requirements (ISO9001, CE, IEEE, electrical equipment, etc.) were reviewed and, as expected, did not present any particular issue, especially given the inert and low-power nature of our products. An analysis of these requirements made us realize that a change of material was required for applications requiring UL-compliance, but did not present any particular issue because a UL-compatible material that is equivalent to the one currently in use already exists.
Finally, an identification of additional IP generated, as well as a strict IP protection plan have been performed. We provide a technology that brings a lot of disruptive added-value. It is therefore fundamental to protect the value we create with strong entry barriers. Intellectual Property will be one of these barriers and phase 1 was the perfect timing to brainstorm about new patentable product ideas in order to add technological benefits to our value proposition and prevent other entities to try to lock our freedom to operate. The brainstorming session included discussion about the market strategy, the R&D roadmap and the production process, in which we identified which assets are truly proprietary and/or can be protected through utility patent, copyright, trade secrets, design patents, method patents, etc.
