#6: Alex Kendall, Wayve CEO, on how policy affects product, sales and fundraising
🎄Merry Christmas! Welcome back to The Form Playbook, our newsletter supporting founders building the future of regulated markets.
This month:
🎙️ Interview with Alex Kendall, CEO and Co-Founder of Wayve: the autonomous vehicles company, on how regulation affects product, sales and fundraising
📰 News & Views: How proposed cuts to R&D tax reliefs will punish startups — and how you can fight back
⏰ Form Updates: Partnering with Atomico on European startup policies, referenced in the FT on R&D tax credit cuts, and joining Aarish Shah on the Nothing Ventured podcast to discuss all things startups, venture and policy
Alex Kendall, CEO and Co-Founder of Wayve, on how policy affects product, sales, and fundraising strategy
Alex Kendall is the CEO and Co-Founder of Wavye, which has raised over $250m in a sector where regulation is make or break: autonomous vehicles. We caught up to hear how public policy has shaped the company’s strategy — touching everything from product development, go-to-market, and investor due diligence.
Alex’s Advice for Founders:
Work closely with the necessary commercial, policy and regulatory stakeholders to bring an emerging technology product to market — in the early days it’s easy to focus more on just showing that the technology works.
Top tip for navigating investor due diligence: have a whitepaper in your data room detailing your roadmap to real-world commercial deployment and the partnerships, regulatory strategy, and quotes/evidence to back that up.
A clear understanding of the regulatory roadmap is critical when building a deep technology business which requires legislative change — even if founders understandably might not be well-versed in handling government or policymakers when they start out.
Don’t take it for granted that everyone, including policymakers, will understand your technology. But also don’t be put off by ever-changing politics and the huge range of competing policy priorities. Focus on your core objectives and clear, consistent messaging about the opportunity your technology represents.
Read the full interview on Medium: Alex Kendall , Wayve CEO, on how policy affects product, sales and fundraising
News & Views
In November, the UK Chancellor announced changes to R&D tax credits which amount to a £1bn funding cut for the UK’s most promising and innovative companies.
The government is trying to cut costs, and has claimed the scheme has enabled significant fraud and misuse. But instead of reforming the system to tackle this, it’s simply cut support for all SMEs — punishing even the most R&D-intensive and economically important startups.
Critically, these changes are due to come into force next April. Companies will need to adapt their plans immediately to preserve runway — especially given the challenging funding environment.
In response, we coordinated an open letter, reported by the FT, to help R&D-intensive startups engage with government about these changes.
We’re also supporting others collecting evidence on the impact of the plans, including Coadec, the startup policy group, who have just launched a new survey to get a clearer picture of how the R&D tax relief cuts will impact start-ups:
Form Updates
Re-up: As part of Atomico’s State of European Tech report, we launched a new database tracking government policies across Europe aimed at fostering startup ecosystems. Check it out, and let us know what we missed in v1.
Leo was on the Nothing Ventured podcast with Aarish Shah, digging into VC fundraising, supporting founders with policy and regulation, and what we look for in the founders we back.
As always, if you know anyone building the future of regulated markets — or you’re an investor thinking about how policy affects your portfolio, get in touch.