Global technology firm Octave is staking its chips on a hefty sponsorship investment with Formula 1 team Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, with CMO David Cryer telling B&T the investment offers good value as well as a meeting of minds between the parties.
Octave inked the deal with the Red Bull-backed F1 team ahead of the Australian Grand Prix curtain-raiser this weekend. For Aussie Cryer, now based in Atlanta, hits both the head and the heart.
“The prospect of launching a new brand and launching this partnership in Australia to an Aussie audience at the Australian Grand Prix, that does mean a lot to me,” Cryer told B&T.
“There is something very sweet about coming home and doing this.”
Octave is a technology company that is in a “pre spin-off” phase from parent company Hexagon. The split is so Octave can focus on the Asset Lifecyle Intelligence and Safety, Infrastructure and Geospatial divisions related to businesses.
This storyline resonates highly with VCARB. Just as the F1 team emerged from the Red Bull Racing ecosystem to establish its own identity on the grid, Octave has begun its own journey as an independent business after separating from Hexagon—which itself is a technology partner of Red Bull Racing.
Octave and VCARB will work together for at least the next three seasons. Cryer wouldn’t disclose the value of the partnership but said “it’s a lot better value than the comparative in LinkedIn ads or traditional means”.
As part of the three year deal, the Octave logo will be placed on the nose cone and on the side of the car, as well as being on the sleeves of the drivers and the helmets of the pit crew.
But for Cryer and the Octave team this partnership is way more “than a sponsorship and more than just a logo on the car”.
For Octave, “it is the most high stakes, high pressure application of data, anywhere in the world. It’s a high profile sport where if things go wrong in that sport everybody sees. For us, it’s the ultimate proving ground for for the intelligence that we can provide based on the operational side of their business.
“Our focus is making sure that they can leverage the same Formula 1 mentality in the operational side of their business.”
Octave is one of many technology companies who have dived head first into the drivers seat of an F1 car. In fact, Ampere Analysis has predicted that the total sponsorship spend in Formula 1 will exceed USD $3 billion (AUD $4.2 billion) for the first time this year—thanks to technology companies and AI firms.
For Cryer, the appeal is obvious.
“It’s a Formula 1 race team, but they are essentially a technology company. It’s the technology companies versus the technology companies, and whoever can make the best decisions based on the information that they gather is often the team that will win,” he said.
Tech buying decisions are often made by senior executives—a demographic that F1 boasts in spades.
“What we’ve found is that a lot of customers are also Formula 1 fans and are in that C-suite type of role. As well, with these big enterprise decisions the lure of having entertainment and hospitality capabilities at the Formula 1 for that period of time. It’s hard to get that level of exposure to a C-level person in a board room.”
High-performance alliance
This collaboration goes beyond branding. It integrates Octave’s software into live operations, supporting decisions, performance and resilience when stakes are at its highest.
The symbiotic partnership brings Octave’s lifecycle intelligence capabilities into one of the most demanding operational environments in sport, supporting performance, reliability and decision-making from factory operations through race execution.
In the global motorsport, performance margins are measured in milliseconds. Success depends on thousands of assets, tightly coordinated processes and decisions made under constant pressure. These are the same conditions faced by mission-critical industries worldwide. Octave’s software is built for environments where failure is not an option. Therefore with Octave’s help, VCARB will be firing on all cylinders before it leaves the grid.
As the season shifts into gear the Octave team will have its work cut out, logistics are going to be an absolute nightmare as the F1 circuit begins making its way to the Middle East next month.
