By Jake Ronay, CEO at HVN Labs
When we founded HVN Labs at Future Space in April 2024, we had a clear ambition:
build a completely new format of drone entertainment and do it entirely ourselves.
Most people’s experience of drone shows is a large-scale spectacle. Hundreds or
thousands of drones flying patterns over a stadium for ten minutes, then it’s over. We
wanted to do something fundamentally different. Something intimate, immersive,
designed to live inside an event rather than interrupt it. A full evening of
performances, not a single moment.
To do that, we knew we couldn’t rely on off-the-shelf technology. We needed
complete control over the hardware, the animation system, the lighting design and
the flight control software. So, we built it all ourselves.
That decision has defined us. With the support of Innovate UK, we’ve secured nearly
£1 million in grant funding across multiple R&D programmes: developing an AI-based
drone swarm control system, improving animation transitions, advancing machine
learning for show safety, and building a drone animation studio for collaborative show
design. Each project has pushed us further and every single one has been built here,
at Future Space.
As a start-up building something from scratch, having the right environment around
you in the early stages makes all the difference. Future Space gave us exactly that.
Lab, office and technical workspaces designed for companies like ours meant we
could develop and test hardware without the barriers that would have slowed us
down elsewhere. The business support and connections that come with being part of
this community have opened doors we couldn’t have knocked on alone.
We’re now bringing that technology to market. Our product is a new format of drone
entertainment for premium venues, private events and creative collaborations,
combining drone flights, ground lighting and live audio-visual production into one
cohesive experience. We’re working with partners including Gravity (Richard
Browning’s Jet Suit company), immersive AV specialists Outerscope, and Act IV Ltd,
whose clients include the Serpentine Gallery, Bloomberg and Tate.
We’re also building creative partnerships with artists and performers who want to
explore what this technology can become. We believe some of the most exciting
possibilities haven’t been imagined yet.
We’re proud to be building this in Bristol. The city’s tech ecosystem, its creative
energy and its appetite for doing things differently have shaped the kind of company
we’re becoming. And Future Space has been a significant part of that story.
If you’re curious about what we’re building, visit hvn-labs.com or get in touch with
Lewis Wright, our Head of Sales, at lewis.wright@hvn-labs.com.
