Stars of Track and TV Back Moves Bringing F1 Tech to Street Level

Greg Hyde

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21st August 2018

Formula One race tech could accelerate into the mainstream telematics market thanks to backing from ex-F1 driver Martin Blundell and TV’s Dragons’ Den star, Theo Paphitis.

The pair have enabled the move by investing in Huddersfield B2B and B2C hardware and software tech firm Intercept IP which has bought Control F1, a telematics start-up also based in the northern UK town. The company’s website describes it as a provider of “innovative products and patents that enable organizations to disrupt markets and secure significant competitive advantage”. It says it hopes to take advantage of Control F1’s telematics “software expertise” with the move.

Intercept IP has also announced that as part of the deal, the new merged entity will receive GPS chips from Sony for use in its telematics hardware, low-power processors from California’s Silicon Labs and unspecified “additional technology platform expertise” from Filipino IMI Group subsidiary STI/AC Industrials.

Intercept says it was motivated to buy Control F1 by the latter company’s leadership of the Center for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV)-funded iMotors project, for which it partnered with the University of Nottingham, Huduma, Infohub and Head Communications. The project was responsible for developing a globally patented driver recognition software system that Intercept claims is “the first of its kind”. The system allows a car to automatically detect who is driving it within the first few hundred meters of a journey through its analysis of people’s driving styles.

Intercept IP group CEO Christian Galle says his company’s newly-gained access to the combined “expertise” of Control F1, Silicon Labs, Sony and STI/AC Industrials will allow it “to run applications on the edge device, allow for more intelligent contextual decision making and optimize data traffic, all running on ultra-low power”.