The transport industry has a big risk problem. Data is fragmented, making it hard to get a good view of fleet risk on the whole. Cracks form, problems go undetected, and the costs of non-compliance eventually show themselves across a fleet’s finances. This is where SHIELD, a driver-oriented solution that helps fleets reduce claim risk, is actively making a difference.

“We knew the problem we wanted to solve because we’d lived it ourselves. What we needed was the technical capability to turn that industry knowledge into a platform that could scale with our customers. Novatura challenged our thinking, helped us turn a very broad product vision into something deliverable, and gave us the flexibility to keep developing as customer feedback came in. The relationship has allowed us to stay focused on the commercial and industry side of SHIELD while having a technical team we trust behind the product. ”

Ben Peters

Director, Hummingbird Insurance Services Ltd / SHIELD

When we first engaged SHIELD, they had a vision to transform the transport industry. This vision was being tried and tested in one of the UK’s top startup accelerator programmes, the USSP Catalyst Programme. They had an MVP and a set of customers who were ready and keen to be onboarded. This was one of the things that impressed us most about SHIELD in the beginning. Involving the customer from the start of the product development journey combined with the founders’ deep industry knowledge, meant that SHIELD was in a great position to get to market and start making a real difference.

The Situation

At the time, SHIELD had two things to solve.

SHIELD brought the industry expertise, product vision and early customer validation. They needed an experienced technical partner to turn that vision into a scalable SaaS platform. Novatura provided the technical, product and development capability to bring their vision to life.

As SHIELD moved from its initial MVP towards a commercial platform, it became important to establish a technology foundation that gave the business full control over its product, roadmap and future development.

They needed to start fresh, and build something that could scale from day one.

Quick Wins, High Value

When SHIELD came to Novatura, they needed a partner who had experience in building SaaS products - a team who could guide them through technical decisions and enable them to get to market quickly. In early conversations, the SHIELD roadmap was huge! They certainly had plenty of ideas! It was vital to scope the project to something that was achievable and could provide immediate customer value. We workshopped the product roadmap in those early days, breaking the wishlist down into deliverables with tangible outcomes.

• Define the product roadmap and generate user stories
• Break these down into a scope of work and product backlog
• Establish costs and time-frames

As the product vision was being developed, SHIELD wanted to translate its industry knowledge and requirements into a clear, intuitive user experience. To create clarity and ensure creative alignment, we did a short design deliverable with them.

• Understand the brand identity
• Evaluate the initial user experience, told through wireframe designs
• Create a design prototype that could be used for demos and marketing assets

This pre-project phase was a crucial part of the development strategy to de-risk the project and reduce the time spent re-working the solution later. We could challenge assumptions that we were making sooner rather than later, and receive feedback from SHIELD’s customers before writing any code, helping us to get off on the right foot and avoid wasting time.

Once we had our technical milestones and roadblocks identified, we fixed the costs, declared the timeframes for delivery and got ready to start building.

Customer-Led Development

As customer feedback started arriving faster than the original scope could flex to accommodate, SHIELD’s priorities evolved quickly. To support this more effectively, Novatura moved the engagement towards an agile development model, allowing the product to continue evolving alongside customer requirements.

This gave both teams precisely what they needed. For SHIELD, they could adjust the work being done in accordance to their changing needs, all without losing momentum. For us, we could maintain predictable development cycles with regular release rhythms and keep delivering at full pace.

Where is SHIELD now?

Shortly after the initial beta launch in October 2025, one of SHIELD’s customers fed back that they’d saved a significant amount of time and money because the system had surfaced anomalies in their expense data that they acted on immediately.

Today, the product has been integrated into several enterprise fleets, and has been very well-received while it continues to incorporate new customer feedback. Novatura deals with the hosting and maintenance of the platform, so that SHIELD can focus on growing the platform, supporting customers and continuing to develop the product around real-world industry needs.

Something that makes SHIELD a stand-out client for Novatura, is their emphasis on keeping the driver at the heart of the platform. Their mission really came through in what they are trying to achieve: a solution that improves driver welfare and makes our roads safer.

If you’ve got a product vision and need a technical partner to turn it into something deliverable, talk to us. We’ll help you scope it, design it, build it, maintain it, and keep it evolving as your customers’ needs do. As a team of expert UK-based developers, we specialise in applying our technical expertise to business projects of all sizes.

Reach out today, and we’ll get the ball rolling