Skip to main content

Windlab Systems - A Global Wind Energy Development Company

Today we showcase the story of an exciting venture, from Canberra, Australia, Windlab Systems - A Global Wind Energy Development Company, co-founded by Dr. Keith Ayotte and Dr. Nathan Steggel.

In a recent email-based interview with us, he gave insights into how he is managing and juggling. This is what he has to say in his interview with us:

• How long it took to launch
6-12 months from idea to launch. Several years of IP development prior

• Stage of Venture
Windlab was formed in May 2003 with 2 FTEs and 2 part-time.
As of March 2009, we have 22 staff across 4 countries (Oz, South Africa, Canada, USA).

• Which Market Segment
Wind Farm Development

• Customers
Financial Institutions; Electricity Asset Owners, Operators and Retailers.

• Targeted Age Group
We are not a consumer service provider. Our customers are large institutions

• Users Using Service
Again, we are not an end-user service - we work closely with large institutions with a mandate to provide clean energy to their customers

• Marketing Technique
Approach individually

• Measuring Success
Business Model with partners built on success fees - we get paid as projects progress through the success stages

• Monetizing/Revenue Model
  • Consulting - fee for service
  • Partnering on wind farm development - paid success fees as projects progress
  • Pure wind farm development - see projects for development margin at some stage of development e.g. Financial close
• Main competitors
Other wind farm developers e.g. Epuron and Wind Prospect in Australia.

• Technology Stack used
WindScape wind mapping technology was developed at CSIRO by the founders and is now 100% owned by Windlab.
RaptorNL and turbulence models developed at CSIRO and in-house.

• Database
N/A - ?? - we use GIS systems with SQL to store large amounts of data about individual projects

• O/S
We mainly use OSX (Mac) for the computations and most of the post-processing. All of our number-crunching machines are Intel Macs (quad Mac Pros and Xserves). Windows XP and Vista are used for the GIS work, which is a substantial part of the workflow.

• How Much Money is Used/Reqd.
The Company needed to order $1-$3 million to set up and develop a business model in the early years.
Has required additional funding to expand and progress the business model

• Main Barriers
Expansion capital

• Advice For People
  • Seek cash early and often
  • Get good legal advice for major deals and try to get larger partners/clients to pay for it as part of any term sheet
• Your Education/Professional Background
Both founders have PhD's

• External Funding
External funding has come from Epicorp, inQbate, Angel Investors, Blue Cove Ventures and Innovation Capital

Ongoing coverage on Australian startups, innovation, business and tech trends, and interviews with experts in various domains can be found here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing List of Australian Startups

Today I'm publishing the list of Australian Startups that have surfaced on the global map in the last 3-5 years and got coverage on our Startups Portal . This is an ongoing endeavour to learn more about new technology-based startups in IT (Enterprise, Product, Open source, SAAS, eCommerce, Web 2.0/3.0), Telecom (Mobile, OSS/BSS), Media (News, Social Networking), Marketing/Branding, Green Tech (Sustainability, Carbon trading), R&D. The following list will be updated regularly as we learn more about startups and cover it here. If you know any new venture or startup which we should know then please feel free to contact us . Let us look at the list now: Adimade Agents of Cha nge Ankoder ApartmentReviews AppleBox Australiaforum BeamMe.Info Booktagger Boozle Brownbook Buzka Cinergix Clickfind Clivir Coastal Watch Community Enabler Confer Debenu Docoloco Etradesman Flogd FreeConnect Front Foo...
6 comments
Read more

99designs - Connecting Designers from Around the World

Today we showcase an exciting and successful venture co-founded by, Mark Harbottle in 2008 from Melbourne, Australia, 99designs - it connects thousands of designers from around the world with clients who need design tasks completed fast, and without the usual high cost and limited choices you get from most traditional design firms. In a recent email-based interview with Mark, he gave insights into his venture and how he is progressing with it. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I’m 34 years old. I have a degree in computer systems engineering. I started my wo rking life as a programmer, but I eventually found I was much better at online marketing, which back in 1995 was an area not many people had explored. I’ve worked with pure internet businesses for 13 years now. The first 4 years after I graduated I worked with one of Australia’s first internet companies, and the last 9 have been spent working on my own businesses. I started...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ankoder - More Than A Online Video Platform

Today we explore an exciting venture in the Online Video Platform, Ankoder (pronounced encoder). It was founded in 2006 by Rex Chung from Sydney, Australia. In a recent email-based interview with Rex Chung, he gave insights into his venture and how he is progressing with it. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about your venture/company? We're more than just a white-label video platform. We provide a flexible API that allows developers to easily integrate videos on their site while keeping full control of the videos and encoding options. • Who are the people behind this and how it started? Ankoder is a product of RoRCraft, which was founded by Rex Chung in 2006. We started this project in-house in house since late 2007. We got this idea from thinking about how can we capitalise on the power of cloud computing. We've designed our application to automatically scale using Amazon's EC2 so that we can guarantee the videos don't need to wait in a queue, and we open...
2 comments
Read more