Comment by electrograv
5 days ago
> In 2025, after a £12m investment, YASA opened the UK's first axial-flux super factory, in Oxfordshire.
It’s a little sad to me that fundamental innovations in electromechanical engineering like this get just a few million in investment, yet if this had been yet another derivative software startup with “AI” in the pitch, they’d probably have 10x+ or more investments being thrown at them.
Seems to me everyone wants to invest, instead, into something that can be "web scale" with low marginal cost, that is, natural monopolies. There is not enough anti-trust enforcement.
They should have named their company "YASAI" (pronounced as "Yes AI") and just watched the investments roll in ...
They're owned by Mercedes, I'm sure they probably have access to the capital they need.
Factories take time to build. "Investors" want a get rich quick scheme.
Or maybe it's not as important as they make it sound.
Welcome to the UK and its innovation hostile environment. We don't have the US culture of throwing VC money at things and seeing what sticks.
This is less UK vs US, more hardware vs software.