Uplift360 moved into the new expanded space here at Future Space earlier this year.
Their Co-founders Sam Staincliffe and Jamie Meighan both came from a military background but from different sides of the coin. While Sam worked with the Red Cross and as an advisor to the MoD, Jamie was ex-RAF and delivered training in cyber crisis and innovation.
Both Sam and Jamie have a passion for sustainability and were aware that this was not being discussed a lot in military circles. They founded Uplift360 with a mission to become the circular economy of choice for the defence industry, focusing on service-based works and consultancy.
As their business grew, their team began to create ideas for how technology could be used to make the industry more sustainable. Taking these ideas to academics, they landed some early funding to develop the technology with the support of the University of Bristol and the Imperial College London.
One of these technologies is now in-house in the team’s lab at Future Space, which they set up in February this year. Their other technology will be in-house in their Luxembourg division, which they set up in summer 2023 with some local funding.
Since broadening their focus beyond the military and focusing on these new technologies, the team has grown to a team of 10 and they are on the cusp of receiving the Seed funding they need to continue developing the technology and funding their labs.
Harry, who has turned his passion for innovation and sustainability into a career, joined them in 2023 as a Programme Manager and will soon be stepping up to become their UK Director.
He explains: “Our core focus is now developing two technologies that recycle high value advanced materials such as carbon fibre composites and Kevlar fibres, which are found in body armour and aircraft and military vehicles. They are used in defence but also in other industries such as aerospace, cars, construction and sportswear.
“Carbon fibre composites are energy intensive to produce, with a complex supply chain that begins with oil and could end up as a product, for example an aeroplane. About 30% of the material is currently wasted just through the production process. Then when the aeroplane gets to the end of its life, it is often just left sitting in a hanger with no use to anyone.
“Initially we focused on reducing the waste in the production process by removing the resins and putting the carbon fibres back into the supply chain to be reused. Now we are also concentrating on processing end-of-life waste from aeroplanes and bicycles, and expanding into other fibre composites such as glass fibre from wind turbine blades.”
He continues: “While we have an international team with some people working remotely, Bristol is a great home for us because of its fantastic links to the aerospace and defence communities and in Luxembourg they are very passionate about sustainability in defence so both these locations make sense for us.
“We chose Future Space because we like being in an incubator surrounded by other start-ups who are all working on interesting innovation that we can learn from and have a similar ethos to us with a sustainability focus.
“It’s the perfect location, lovely environment and the team there are very accommodating, housing us in a shared lab until our new lab in the new expansion became available. They’ve also helped us link up with opportunities from the University – we are recruiting student interns and are building links with their engineering department through the new R&D Pathway Project.”
