From Element 14 to FiveAI, serial founder Stan Boland on why difficult problems create durable companies, how to pivot with evidence, and what UK teams need to scale globally.
In this In Focus interview, Stan Boland shares how choosing hard problems leads to defensible moats, why disciplined customer discovery should precede every strategic pivot, and what it takes to turn UK deep tech into global outcomes. Watch the video below and explore key themes, why we invested, and Stan’s background.
Stan argues that hard technical problems attract the best people, raise the bar for competitors, and create advantages that compound over time.
Before changing direction, test the model with real customers. At Element 14 the team interviewed dozens of US technology leaders before shifting to application-specific silicon.
Five chose London—weather, lighting, roads, and weak satellite coverage—to demonstrate capability in one of the toughest real-world settings.
Meaningful employee participation builds trust and retention, aligning culture with ambition.
World-class engineering can scale from the UK when supported by decisive leadership, the right capital, and thoughtful go-to-market design.
Stan’s track record maps to our Intelligence investment theme: trailblazers reshaping how the world thinks, processes, and builds. We back founders who validate with customers early, move decisively when the model is wrong, and build cultures that compound execution over time. This is how UK deep tech earns global relevance.
Stan Boland is a British technology entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded Element 14 (acquired by Broadcom) and Icera (acquired by NVIDIA), and most recently led the autonomous-driving company FiveAI. He is known for assembling specialist teams, tackling difficult problems worth winning, and running disciplined, customer-led strategy.
