Startup of the week: Flag Turbines

Challenging conventional wind turbine design, this company is developing a patented vertical-axis technology focused on generating energy through a different aerodynamic approach. Built around low rotational speed and high torque, the concept evolved from years of research and testing that explored alternatives to traditional wind systems.

We spoke to the Founder and CEO Maarten Van Oeveren to learn more about the technology and the vision driving its development.

Tell us about your company.   

Maarten: Flag Turbines are operating on the patented BLOwN Turbine Technology. Instead of fast spinning, we generate power at low rotational speed and high torque. The initial concept dates back to one of the founders graduation research to lift, in 2000/2001. When we compared aviation aerodynamics with thrust aerodynamics, we found that the aerodynamical principles were different. In 2018 the two founders made another comparison between the standard HAWT technology and the, at that time conceptual, BLOwN VAWT technology, and found much better capabilities of the BLOwN Technology.

What made you become an entrepreneur?   

Maarten: Whilst working in a corporate high tech product development environment, we agreed that the premature concept of the BLOwN Turbine Technology would not survive a corporate financial risk/reward review, and that a very lean start-up approach would be a more robust avenue. In the end the tech development part would still be our work. Therefore we decided to start with tech, and to develop something meaningful. For business and strategy development we leaned on regional economic accelerator institutions.

What is the most challenging part of running your own startup? 

Maarten: Finance. Once the risk/reward balance is perceived as positive, there is immense capital available within a corporate network. This is not the case when leaning on public accelerators. As a start-up you are continuously pushed to minimize risk to the financiers, and to maximize reward to potential investors. This splitted messaging should result in also receiving funding from standard investors.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced when looking for funding?  

Maarten: However, investors don’t easily jump on the opportunity. They don’t have the technical knowledge that would be available in the organized corporate setting, and therefore rely on either market evaluation and previous investment results. The biggest difficulty with a multifaceted physics power system is the necessity to accurately stage the validation steps. Aerodynamics, electromagnetics, power electronics and transfer of forces must be matched with each other. It’s not possible to optimize the entire system, without fully understanding the individual behavior of each subsystem. Once all systems are properly matched, then optimization can begin. This spans both power performance as well as maintenance and lifetime costs. 

Too early focus on profit is leading to a tech lock-in on costs associated with overcoming the problems that arise from the skipped validation steps. Any investor should therefore be prepared for a very rigid investment strategy, in which technical reality must be respected.

What is the most rewarding aspect of entrepreneurship?  

Maarten: It is an absolute honor to work on one of the oldest engineering topics, to culminate the relevant knowledge, via many information platforms, to work with an ancient force, and to create something which is needed for a sustainable future.

Thank you Maarten for the interview! Connect with Maarten on LinkedIn: Maarten Van Oeveren