2026/03/13
Leamington Spa, UK — Urban.MASS Limited, the pioneering shared autonomous transit company behind the floc® and Duo Rail™ systems, today announced the signing of a landmark partnership with Avant Design Limited, one of the UK’s leading automotive and product design studios.
The agreement, signed last week by Urban.MASS Co-Founder Ricky Sandhu and Head of Product Tony King alongside Avant Design Managing Director Jonathan Gould, marks a pivotal moment in Urban.MASS’s mission to transform how people move through cities worldwide.
Under the terms of the partnership, Avant Design becomes Urban.MASS’s design partner and equity investor in the company — demonstrating its belief in the product and its application worldwide. Work has already begun.
Avant Design will lead the full interior and exterior design and styling of the Urban.MASS floc pod — the vehicle that manufacturing partner Cecomp will build as Urban.MASS’s first physical demonstrator. The collaboration covers everything from concept generation and exterior styling through to interior ergonomics, user experience and colour, materials and finishes.
As an ongoing customisation partner, Avant Design’s work will extend beyond the initial prototype, creating multiple design variants for Urban.MASS clients spanning markets from the Middle East to Africa for a variety of use cases.
The demonstrator and its designs will be unveiled to the world later this year — a moment Urban.MASS expects to mark a defining milestone not just for the company, but for the future of shared mobility globally.
“I’ve owned many cars and designed for many low and high-volume manufacturers. What I’ve learnt over the last 40 years is that the interior of a car is what defines your journey, but the exterior is what attracts you. Here we have the perfect blend and the opportunity to take those fundamentals to a level where no mass transit manufacturers have had the chance to before. I’m so excited about this.”, Jonathan Gould, Managing Director, Avant Design Limited
It is a sentiment that Urban.MASS Co-Founder Ricky Sandhu has championed since the company’s inception: to genuinely shift people away from private car ownership and the imperfect, impersonal experience of today’s public transport systems, shared transit must offer an experience that is not merely adequate — it must be aspirational.
Urban.MASS is not simply building vehicles. The floc system represents a new category: Physical AI — the application of an AI-native software intelligence layer directly to a physical product operating in the real world. It is a concept the broader industry is only beginning to grapple with, and one that carries profound implications for how these products must be designed.
The automotive industry has spoken for years about software-defined vehicles. Urban.MASS goes further. Where a software-defined vehicle layers intelligence onto a conventional product architecture, Physical AI means the intelligence and the physical form are inseparable from the outset — the vehicle, the track, the network, and the control system are designed as a single, unified intelligent system.
This makes human-centred design not a luxury but a necessity. The world is not yet familiar with Physical AI. Passengers stepping into a floc pod will encounter something genuinely new: a vehicle that senses, responds, and adapts. How that experience looks, feels, and communicates — from the sweep of the exterior that draws people in, to the interface that greets them inside — must be designed with exceptional care and intentionality.
This is precisely why the Avant Design partnership matters so deeply. Avant’s expertise in automotive design, user experience and colour, materials and finishes will ensure that Urban.MASS’s Physical AI is not only technologically groundbreaking — it is beautiful, intuitive, and unmistakably human.
Urban.MASS is building a different kind of future for urban mobility — not tunnels bored beneath cities, not viaducts cutting through neighbourhoods, and not the cramped, uncomfortable vehicles that have defined public transit for generations. The Urban.MASS vision is of elevated, driverless pods that are quiet, beautiful, and genuinely desirable: akin to shared lounges gliding through the air, connecting airports and cities, terminals, stations and much more — a seamless journey that is unrivalled.
With Avant Design now on board, that vision is closer to physical reality than ever before.
“For years I’ve said the same thing: if you want people to leave their cars, to alleviate congestion and increase productivity — you have to give them something just as good, or better. Our pods will be the coolest vehicle on, or above the road. floc allows you to be in a vehicle, feel like you are flying, even though you are on a lightweight track. It’s completely unique. Our multi-patented global technology brings roller coaster simplicity to the transport world. I want you to feel like you are flying through the city in your own space — that is not a bus, a tram, or the rear of an Uber. The experience can be genuinely better with a bespoke, beautifully designed vehicle. Avant Design understands that completely. Jonathan and his team bring world-class automotive design craft to Urban.MASS, and together we are going to build something that genuinely turns heads and changes minds. The future of shared transit just got very real.”, Ricky Sandhu, Co-Founder, Urban.MASS Limited
Avant Design is a UK-based automotive, product design and creative development studio with a portfolio spanning multiple sectors and geographies. As an equity partner, their commercial alignment with Urban.MASS’s success makes this more than a supplier relationship — Avant Design has genuine skin in the game.
Work is already underway, with design outputs feeding directly into the manufacturing programme with Cecomp for the first physical demonstrator vehicle. The completed demonstrator will be launched to the world later this year. The partnership will also see Avant Design create multiple design variants for Urban.MASS clients spanning markets from the Middle East to Africa.
The future of transport, as envisioned by Urban.MASS, just got very close.
About Urban.MASS Limited
Urban.MASS Limited is a UK-based mobility infrastructure and technology company specialising in the design, development and deployment of new-generation, purpose-built autonomous transit systems, including the floc® and Duo Rail™ platforms and floc.AI its AI Native Mission management software platform. Urban.MASS is focused on delivering scalable, sustainable and genuinely desirable shared mobility solutions for cities across the globe.
About Avant Design Limited
Avant Design Limited is a UK automotive, product and creative design consultancy delivering concept, design development and production-intent design services across the automotive and transport sectors. Based in Warwickshire, Avant Design works with clients worldwide to create vehicles and products that are as compelling as they are functional.
Media Enquiries
Urban.MASS Limited
Email: press@urbanmass.co.uk / invest@urbanmass.co.uk
Web: www.urbanmass.co.uk
Avant Design Limited
Email: jgould@avant.design
Urban.MASS head office
Urban.MASS Limited
The Smiths Building
179 Great Portland Street
London W1W 5PL
England
