Product & company maturation support

Delta-Utec IAS can help your hardware development company through this most challenging phase from start-up to scale-up, while you are not yet churning out products and reaping revenues. We help you raise your hardware innovation idea from TRL2 towards TRL8, get angels on board with an attainable product roadmap and ready your company for Series A funding. We do this with tailored and immersive support packages, typically of two months duration, at a pre-agreed fixed pricing:

• Systematic design & prototyping support and design validation from TRL2–TRL7: starting from user needs for hardware systems (mechanisms, composites, electronics), going through prototype iterations, achieving problem-solution fit and building up the right processes for certification.
• Innovation strategy, product roadmap and R&D prioritization. Time to market is key, but development must go hand in hand with team, fundraising and company growth. What is the ‘dot on the horizon’ of your product roadmap, with which you will achieve breakthrough and market leadership? What are viable features of a Minimum Viable Product that solves the worst pain for your launching customers? How many intermediate steps can you afford to develop your product, and how does this affect your R&D approach? Do you go full-size with your prototype then work on quality, or build a reliable subscale prototype and then scale up? What are limits of scalability? What additional innovations are required to reach breakthrough scale? Do you have the resources to branch off your product development from a continuous R&D stream, or do you freeze R&D and focus on maturing your first product?
• Project plan development. Based on your innovation strategy, set up a development project to make it happen, including work package descriptions, project logic, objectives, milestones, KPIs, risks, required resources and costing.
• Business plan development towards angel investment and/or Series A, including risk mapping, go-to-market approach, company growth strategy & organizational structure, attainable optimistic-realistic timeline and funding plan.
• Due diligence report in line with EIB investment criteria.
• Support the building of your engineering and leadership team: we help you define the right functions, roles and responsibilities for your engineers and management team, define vacancies and can even interview and evaluate applicants.

Our support is based on dozens of successful system developments in compliance with aerospace quality requirements, including advanced mechanisms, composites and electronics. We cover aerospace and sustainability hardware development and application initiatives (including small satellites, fixed-wing drones, airborne wind energy, river cleaning, offshore floating solar).