Digital and radio frequency specialist Slipstream Design has recorded double-digit growth that has seen company turnover almost double in its 2025-26 financial year, and the team has delivered contracts for two new clients worth £1.5 million.

The Shipley-based business, which employs 27 people, attributes its growth to several factors, including being one of only 28 UK companies selected to take part in NATO’s prestigious Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) project.

Commercial Director Sarah Gregory says: “We have always set ourselves ambitious growth targets, and expansion at this scale is never down to just one thing. The progress we’ve seen this year is a result of our consistency in customer delivery over the years and investing in our team in the same period, coupled with the opportunities resulting from the NATO DIANA accelerator programme.”

The project, which concluded in June, has enabled Slipstream Design to accelerate routes to market for its ASTRO™ compact wideband configurable radio platform and shape the way the team develops and demonstrates the system.

Sarah adds: “In just two years, ASTRO™’s capabilities have advanced significantly. We have moved on from debuting demonstrations of agile switching between complex waveforms, multi-waveform synchronisation and RF spectrum capture and processing using SigMF. We now have a high-performance, software-defined RF module that allows an end user to adapt its function depending on the contested and congested radio environment.”

Since its formation in 2011, Slipstream Design has built a track record in markets including radar, critical communications, and signal intelligence. The company’s client base spans major original equipment manufacturers, technology start-ups, defence primes including BAE Systems and Leonardo UK, as well as work on government and military projects.

Sarah says: “We made a deliberate decision from the start to remain founder-funded, and we have invested in developing sovereign UK technologies that we believe will become essential to the future operating environment.

“We see a huge opportunity for the defence sector to work with SMEs like us, who have invested in developing advanced capability to accelerate the journey from innovation to operational capability. By building on technologies that already exist, programmes can reduce development timelines, lower programme risk and deliver meaningful operational advantage far more quickly.

“We have spent 15 years laying the right foundations. We have made the investments, we have deployed the technology, and now we are ready to scale.”