UltraMAP – In the Beginning.

Towards the end of 2020, UltraMAP Co-Founder & Commercial Director Martin Connelly was interviewed for a series of videos for our Video & Demo Centre.

Below is the narrative from this first video – ‘UltraMAP – In the Beginning’ – where Martin chats about how UltraMAP started. To watch the full video, please go here.

Hello Martin, why did you and Des start UltraMAP in 2008?

We were actually approached by one of our customers in the roles that we were in then to create AssetMonitor. One of our customers had a particular problem, Channel Islands Electricity Grid, had an issue with nearly anchoring over the top of the power cable that went between the Channel Islands and France.

And they wanted us to create some software to solve that problem. To monitor what was happening over the cable. And then raise alarms if we thought that the vessels were about to create some damage.

So we actually responded to some customers requirements and they commissioned us to write that software. And we thought it was a great thing to do to start a business based on it.

So how long did it take before you realised that UltraMAP was doing something really significant?

Almost straight away. So we had our first customer on board but then the take up from other related businesses was significant straight away. That we found that whenever we demonstrated the software to anyone who had subsea cables / pipes could see what we were trying to solve. And the take up was quiet instant. We had a lot of customers come onboard straight away. We realised the significance at that point.

But we’re constantly reminded of our significance by the feedback we get from our customers and every time we attend conferences and exhibitions we always get good feedback from them.

So how did you end up working across 5 quite different sectors?

It was natural evolution really. In that we started with a really specific problem that we were solving for a subsea power cable. We then were almost immediately were solving the problem associated with telecoms cables. And one thing led to another. We kept responding to customers requirements and listening to what problems they had. And it was natural evolution to go from power cables, telecoms cables into renewable energy sites, oil and gas and them almost an operations centre for anyone who was installing a subsea asset.

And how has UltraMAP changed in the last 10 years?

We’re older and wiser… the main thing that has changed is that we’re much bigger. That brings its own issues. Growing the business is quite a complicated thing as is growing AssetMonitor to cope with that growing business.

I’m quite proud of the fact that we’ve done a lot of work in the background to maintain the stability of the product from our customers perspective so that they don’t notice this growth. They just want us to maintain a presence over their subsea assets to help protect them. We’re bigger but we still are doing the same thing in a very personable way.

Get in touch to see how UltraMAP could help protect your subsea assets.