Silent Sensors has been in business for just over ten years.  During these years our business focus has evolved from one set of technologies to several various options, and back to a more defined focus on designing a tag and sensor array that can be embedded into commercial tyres. In all that time we have always had the engagement and support of key industry players, from Bridgestone and Goodyear, to Continental and Pirelli. In a very long process Silent Sensors is, despite its size, not only a survivor but one of the most innovative in its field.

In the near future we are very confident that we can deliver a commercially viable solution embedded tag solution, and with that not only an assured revenue stream, but also the ability to design and create variants and spin-offs for the tyre industry. This is what we strive for now, and why our very patient shareholders still invest in us. We are very proud of the commercial partner we have in our latest UKRI grant, to deliver this solution.

But of what happens after that, and where is the market heading, that we can not only keep up with, but lead?

We have always known that the real value in what we do lies with what organisations can do with the data generated by the devices we create. These tags and sensors are a means to an end: actionable data. Yet without these devices there are no data, no information. Considering who and what our target clients are, this takes time, which is why we are where we are. Putting devices in tyres is not for the faint-hearted, and a decade is no time at all given that initial work by major manufacturers on this approach has been going on for more than 25 years.

As we have worked through our physical device focussed products during these last ten years, the world of data generation and use has boomed. From Big Data to the Cloud, from the Internet to the Internet of Things and then the Industrial Internet of Things, now the still-to-be discovered potential of massive data, machine learning and artificial intelligence, we live in a great age of data generation and valorisation. Something that, now created, will only grow and deepen.

You can see how vitally important this move to speed up critical, forward looking actionable information is by seeing where venture capital is going: to industry specific, indeed activity specific, applications that can pull data together from internal and external sources in a set of algorithms that the program can itself can learn and extrapolate from, delivering predictive analyses and actionable information the (for now) human user can use to improve performance.

Silent Sensors fits squarely within that ‘universe’ and that future. Why? Because our custom-made devices are, by their very nature, generators of massive data that are of critical value for many audiences: tyre makers, auto makers, fleet managers, insurers, policy makers.

We are less than two years away from making that happen. With that under our belt, we can expand within the automotive and manufacturing industries, where devices will still need to be designed and made for challenging uses.

In short we are exactly where we need to be, with a very clear path forward and a deeply experienced team who are bringing this to fruition. We know that, once a device is proven and market ready, the strategic value lies in what the data can become for users – and what that means for us.  We will work directly and with select partners to make that happen.