French fries, French windows

If there are three essential ingredients for life – food, energy and shelter – then David Appleford has done a pretty good tour of the human experience over the last forty years. After dallying in the fast food sector, he invested 17 years and £25m of funding in a new technology for deep sea oil production that caught the attention of one of the global industry giants. Now he’s focusing on shelter – and in particular, on a new way of constructing pre-assembled buildings in the affordable housing sector. If the response he claims to have received from the industry is anything to go by – and words like ‘astounded’ and ‘awe’ do feature in the conversation – then he could be on to a big thing.

 Now in his 60s, Appleford has some 50 inventions under his belt – along with one or two business disappointments to help keep his feet firmly on the ground. After an early career as a draughtsman, his general engineering experience has taken him into an extraordinary variety of ventures. One of his first businesses was a machine designed to control portion sizes of french fries, which he developed during a potato shortage. Although he sold 200 units into Kentucky Fried Chicken, the venture stumbled when his bank turned down a request for funding to help him put it into mass production.

A second piece of advice he followed was to make sure he got letters of intent from clients.

He moved from there to the oil sector, where he’d long believed there could be a simpler way to produce oil and gas from deep water. After spending some £5m on what he describes as a disruptive technology for seabed processing, he sold the business to a Swedish organisation and stayed on as CEO. When the parent company itself was taken over, the business was offered for sale to one of the global oil giants, but delays to the deal allowed Appleford’s team to step in with a management buy-out offer and create Alpha Thames Subsea, where he remains managing director.

Source of inspiration

It was during the later years of his work in the oil sector that Appleford got the idea for a completely different venture that would form the basis for his new company, AcerMetric. He’d been intrigued by an unusual kind of awning that he’d come across on the side of a caravan – unlike the tent structures that are typically used to create extra outside space, this was a solid structure. But it had its limitations – there was no floor, and required a lot of screws to put it together. That got Appleford thinking, once again, about whether there could be a simpler approach

As he investigated, he ran into one of the oldest conundrums in material design. If you assemble a cube, it’s impossible to get four of the twelve edges to overlap because of the thickness of the material. This fundamental problem has long limited manufacture of a wide range of products, including prefabricated buildings. What Appleford’s team has come up with is a new design concept that gets round the problem by using self-supporting, interlocking panels to build floors, ceilings and walls. The components can be delivered on a flat-pack or in pre-built modules, and an entire structure can be put together with one simple tool. AcerMetric expects to get the building design certified by regulators during the second quarter of next year

Although experienced in raising funds, Appleford joined the g2i programme on the basis that it would be a useful refresher as he sought investment for AcerMetric. That instinct proved correct, and he believes that much of the value of the programme has come from tips he picked up during the different workshops and meetings with the consortium team.

A more focussed approach

When AcerMetric initially approached g2i, Appleford pitched his product as a one size fits all solution for multiple industries and market sectors. Feedback from the consortium convinced him that investors prefer management teams to be more focused and that he should target one market at a time. He subsequently decided to target the booming affordable housing sector first, and while AcerMetric is not the only supplier offering pre-built accommodation, Appleford claims its design approach sets it apart.

“I have 50 inventions, but I have never, in all my life, come across a product like this,” says Appleford. “For new boys on the block, the acceptance we’re getting from the industry has been astonishing. Architects, building regulators, builders – they’re absolutely astounded, absolutely in awe.”

A second piece of advice he followed was to make sure he got letters of intent from clients. Another was a suggestion to tap existing business partners to see if they’d be interested in getting involved in the new venture. AcerMetric already had several angel investors on board, but the suggestion prompted Appleford to approach an oil industry business partner in Malaysia, who’s also now invested. “Although you may be long in the tooth,” he says, “you’re never too old to learn.”

Since connecting with g2i, AcerMetric has secured a second round of funding, valuing the company at around five times the initial angel investment. Along with the financial injection, the backers are giving Appleford practical assistance, including land to build its first three-bedroom pilot house on and high-level contacts, not least in government. They also bring commercial expertise. AcerMetric’s core management team, which has worked together for twelve years in the oil and construction ventures, consists of Appleford himself, another engineer and an accountant. “We’ve never been so good at selling,” he concedes. “So our new investors are bringing strategic thinking and good business acumen into the company. That allows me to get on with building the team and the product.”

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