From Innovative Idea to Innovation: Inductosense Presented with the King’s Award for Enterprise
Inductosense presented with King's Award for Enterprise in ceremonial visit
23rd October 2025 - Matt Butcher
We are honoured to receive the King’s Award for Enterprise - Innovation 2025, marking a proud milestone in our journey from university research to wide-scale deployment across 38 countries.
Mrs Peaches Golding OBE CStJ, His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant for Bristol, visited the Inductosense headquarters this week, accompanied by one of her cadets, to present the award in an official ceremony which recognises the company’s outstanding achievement in innovation.
During the visit, the Lord-Lieutenant met with Bamboo (founder and CTO) and I to discuss our journey, the WAND technology and how we are helping industries solve real-world challenges in corrosion and erosion monitoring with digitised solutions.
Bamboo gave a demo of the WAND system and we also revealed some of the new developments we have in the lab. Our guests then toured the production facilities to see how the products are assembled, tested, and prepared for global deployment by the in-house team.
During the ceremony, Mrs Golding delivered a congratulatory address before formally presenting the King’s Award and Royal Scroll to us. This was a moment to celebrate technological achievements, the incredible team behind them, the company’s culture of continuous innovation and the support that has driven us forward.
Receiving this prestigious award made me reflect on my passion for innovation, something that I have been involved with throughout my career. Innovation is more than just an invention. It’s the process of turning an idea into something that creates real value, bridging the gap between “yeah I reckon this could work!” and a commercial useful product used across the world.
We often use the language of Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) when discussing the management of innovation. With TRL 1–3 being research and proof-of-concept (early testing of idea), TRL 4-6 being prototype validation and pilots (concepts become practical) and TRL7-9 being commercialisation and deployment (innovation becomes impact). This has been our journey and it has been an absolute pleasure to lead the team throughout it.
TRL 1–3: The University Research Phase The Inductosense story began in 2012 in the Ultrasonics & Non-Destructive Testing group at the University of Bristol. Bamboo was working on his PhD alongside his supervisors Prof Anthony Croxford, and Prof Paul Wilcox and they came up with the innovative idea behind the WAND system. The motivation behind it was to reduce human-error in ultrasonic non-destructive testing using wireless battery-free sensing. I got involved with the team then (in my commercialisation role at the University) and we then filed patents, secured proof of concept funding and went through the InnovateUK iCURE programme.
TRL 4–6: From Spin-Out to Prototype Development In 2015, we spun out Inductosense from the University with InnovateUK funding on the back of the iCURE programme and investment from the founders and our chairman. We developed our first product and got it into the hands of customers in the field. Their feedback helped us to refine the product offering. The traction with customers, alongside the support we had from SETsquared then helped us to secure further investment.
TRL 7–9: Scaling, Manufacturing, and Global Deployment With subsequent investment we further developed our product and achieved the necessary certifications. We then went through multiple trials with customers across the world, getting the technology approved and demonstrating the business case and value it could bring. We scaled our manufacturing and team and now have tens of thousands of sensors deployed across multiple sectors and 38 countries. At this stage, innovation has now become real impact: a proven, commercial technology delivering measurable value worldwide.
I believe this journey through the TRL levels also captures what the King’s Award for Innovation celebrates - the successful transformation of an idea into global industrial benefit.
At Inductosense, innovation isn’t confined to just R&D it runs through every part of the business. It is in the way we manufacture the product, how we do our marketing, in how we ensure successful project delivery through our customer success team, in how we work in a collaborative way with our customers to develop our solution to address their needs. It is a mindset in our business.
“We consider Inductosense not just as a supplier or vendor, but primarily as a technology and innovation partner. Your sensor solutions are key enablers for our digitalisation initiatives and asset integrity programs” Major Operator
It takes an outstanding team of dedicated and hardworking people to achieve this once in a lifetime award and I want to recognise everyone who played a part: the researchers, the University of Bristol, our investors, our support network (including SETsquared Bristol and InnovateUK ICURe), our suppliers, partners, customers and most importantly, the Inductosense team!
Well done everyone, fantastic achievement and thank you!
Matt
