AERALIS SIGNS MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH AIRTANKER

Aeralis, the Bristol-based British military jet developer, has signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with aviation services provider AirTanker to evaluate opportunities for an aircraft service o ering in the light fast jet defence market.

This follows Aeralis’ recent award of a multi-million-pound digital engineering services contract from the UK Ministry of Defence. The MoU will assess upcoming contracts in military flying training, defence operational training and combat air support roles.

The MoU covers a range of services that Brize Norton-based AirTanker can o er, such as collaboration with overseas partners and establishing local service provision.

The agreement aims to use the Aeralis programme to achieve significantly lower financing, acquisition and operating costs for aircraft compared to incumbents, paving the way for enabling a wide range of ‘on-demand’ operational air support services as part of the future of air force fleets.

This latest announcement follows on from a successful year for Aeralis. The British jet developer signed partnerships with other companies building towards the ultimate delivery of the aircraft, including Thales UK, Atkins, Siemens, Martin-Baker and Hamble Aerostructures.

Aeralis also signed an MoU with RollsRoyce to explore initial and future options to meet the company’s propulsion requirements, and opened its first facility, the Aeralis Enterprise Hub, in the Bristol Defence & Aerospace cluster earlier this year.

Aeralis is also currently in Phase Two of a three-year contract with the Royal Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities O ce.

In 2008, AirTanker signed a 27-year contract with the Ministry of Defence to deliver and support 14 Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft, which operate as

Voyager while in RAF service.

AirTanker’s CEO Phill Blundell said: “We are excited to be collaborating with the Aeralis team on this transformative programme and bring our expertise of supporting and delivering complex military operating solutions into the project at this developmental stage.”

Aeralis’s founder and chief executive Tristan Crawford added: “This Memorandum of Understanding with AirTanker marks an important step in Aeralis going to market not only with a transformational aircraft system but also with a disruptive aircraft service o ering.

“This will have the potential to transform the operating economics of defence light jet aviation, releasing sorely needed capacity and capability for military customers.”

Bristol studios selected for Creative Enterprise: Games Scale Up programme

Two Bristol-based games studios have been selected for the Creative Enterprise: Games Scale Up 2022/23 programme.

The six-month programme, which has been developed by Creative England and UKIE, the games trade body, aims to help companies in the games sector develop and grow their businesses.

Foggy Box Games was founded in 2017 by two members of the University of the West of England’s games division, Play West.

To date, the studio has developed two games. Both use Virtual Reality, with the first, Brunch Club (pictured above), asking its players to cook a meal while navigating challenges and hazards, while its second has its players doing a similar thing but with beverages in space.

The second studio to join the cohort is Meteor Pixel Limited, an outsourcing partner which specialises in Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. The studio provides external development services for the video games and extended reality sectors.

The company has worked with a number of di erent companies including Bristol-based games studio Auroch Digital, Stroud-based augmented experience team All Seeing Eye and Bristol-based marketing firm Diva.

This year’s Games Scale Up programme is being supported by Barclays.

Triodos Bank backs nature reserve for rewilding charity in UK first

Bristol-based ethical bank Triodos has backed rewilding charity Heal with a £3.75 million loan to support the acquisition of its first landholding in what is believed to be a UK first.

Heal will create a new nature reserve with 460 acres near Bruton in Somerset – the first in a series of nature reserves it plans to establish in every English county.

The lending marks Triodos Bank’s first loan to a rewilding project and is believed to be the first commercial loan of its kind in the UK.

Heal plans to acquire land using a ordable lending, which will be paid down as quickly as possible with mass public land sponsorship, corporate donations and natural capital investment.

As well as support from Triodos Bank, this first project is also backed by a loan from Direct Line Group, plus a land fund Heal launched in March 2020, which includes both public and corporate donations and a land sponsorship scheme.

MyNestBox raises £1.3m funding

MyNestBox, the Bristol digital platform and API (application programming interface) that connects thousands of data sources to speed up home buying, has raised £1.3 million in a round led by Fuel Ventures, alongside backing from other property law firms. MyNestBox features interactive and data-led “searches” for property lawyers.

“Searches” are currently supplied as large PDF documents containing all the information a home buyer (and their lender) need to know, such as flood risk, subsidence and public rights of way. Since launching in beta, MyNestBox supplies the data instantly to the lawyer. MyNestBox have letters of intent exceeding £1 million annually, to be realised in 2023.

The platform was co-founded by proptech and software entrepreneurs Henry Crosby PhD and Adam Rogers.