If ever you wanted an illustration of why a startup might want to attend an event like Mobility.Pioneers, look no further than automotive cyber security company Trillium Secure. Having travelled all the way from Japan to Germany for the first edition of Mobility.Pioneers last year, they impressed the jury enough to enjoy the glory and publicity that came with victory in the autonomous track, one of three broad categories in which startups competed.
That in itself was a great return for a company making its first foray to a European event. But there was more to cheer than that. Trillium also got talking to automotive giant Volkswagen at the event, a connection which directly led to an ongoing collaboration with the corporate. And the impression they made last year also earned them an invitation to return, this time to take part in a panel discussion that reflects their growing status in the industry. Trillium’s CEO David Uze will be taking part in the What Could Future OEM Business Models Look Like? discussion on stage.
“We were humbled that the jury recognized the importance of securing vehicles and how that is fundamental to enabling autonomous drive,” recalls their Strategic Business Development Manager Adrian Sossna, who will also be present in Munich once again. “Without cyber security, there’s no autonomous drive.
“On the opening night, at the ice-breaker event, I happened to sit at the same table as Dr Zach Izham. He’s Project Manager of the Volkswagen Data:Lab in Munich. We kept in contact and he was very interested in what we were doing. Then in October last year we were selected for the VW Data:Lab program, and are now working continuously with them. So that contact was made at Mobility.Pioneers. On the day itself we had a demo set up and we got a lot of attention at our little booth. We got a lot of leads and discussions from that too.”
Fond as those recollections are, Trillium is looking forwards rather than backwards as the company continues to grow fast. And they see great value in taking part in the panel discussion next week.
“What these panels give you is the opportunity to begin a conversation about things that are industry-wide problems, with the right parties,” says Sossna. “Cyber security solutions won’t come from a startup. Nor from an OEM. And nor from a Tier 1. They’ll come from a group of companies coming together to solve different parts of a major problem. Panels enable us to start that conversation.
“One of the key reasons we’re coming back is to meet the right people from the right mobility companies. People who have an interest in our type of disruptive business model and want to do this together with a startup like ours. Having deployed and built our value system for Japan, we’re looking to have the right Go To Market partners for Europe this year.”
So which are the startups jostling for a chance to emulate Trillium’s success when the second edition of Mobility.Pioneers rolls around next week? Having narrowed down the invitation list to 100 startups, we can now also name the 20 who we’ve selected to pitch on stage – and the experts who’ll judge them. The program has been expanded from last year, and now includes four pitching tracks.
The details for each track are as follows:
SHARED USE TRACK
Startups: Caroo Mobility, MOVTZ, 2hire, Getaway, Utopian Future Technologies
Judges: Julius Rüßmann (Earlybird Venture Capital), Tian Tian Feng (Cherry Ventures) and Jens-Philipp Klein (Atlantic Labs).
ELECTRIFICATION TRACK
Startups: CIRRANTiC, AVILOO, EcoG, Lennahc, ChargeX
Judges: Olaf Joeressen (High-Tech Gründerfonds), Julien Etienne (Aster Capital)
AUTONOMOUS TRACK
Startups: TheWhollySee, Sensible 4, Humanising Autonomy, emotion3D, embotech AG
Judges: Ulrich Eisele (Fluxunit), Boris Shulkin (Magna International), Phillip Stangl (Pioneers Ventures)
CONNECTIVITY TRACK
Startups: Capricode, WeNow, High Mobility, German Autolabs, Susi & James
Judges: Christian Lindener (Wayra), Gitte Bedford (Robert Bosch Venture Capital), Marie-Helene Ametsreiter (Speedinvest)
The winning startup from each track will then get the chance to pitch on the Muffatwerk’s biggest stage at the end of the day, as they shoot for a chance to win overall. Picking the best of the quartet will doubtless be a tough job, and one we’ve entrusted to Tobias Jahn of BMW i Ventures, David Murray-Hundley of Tech London Advocates Automotive and our own Pioneers Ventures expert Stangl.
Perhaps the final word on pitching should go to Sossna, who was happy to share some advice on what helped get Trillium the thumbs-up from the judges a year ago.
“Focus on the problem that you’re solving, but be mindful of the applicability and the feasibility of what you’re doing,” he suggests. “Tie things into reality by presenting a clear business case for what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. If you have excellent tech and you don’t have the business model that goes with it, then you won’t be able to win. And if you have an excellent business model, but don’t have the tech for it, you won’t be able to win either. You have to marry the business with the technology.”
One last thing: our Match & Meet networking service is now live ahead of Mobility.Pioneers. If you need to get set up to use this great piece of tech, read on!
First head here and log in, using the same email address that you used to buy your ticket for Mobility.Pioneers. The next step is to check out the agenda and then fill out the slots in which you’ll be free for meetings. Then, if you haven’t previously filled out your match-making preferences – whom you’d like to meet, in other words – please do so.
Your personalised meeting schedule will be ready for you on February 6th, two days before the start of Mobility.Pioneers. It will also be sent in the form of Google Calendar or Outlook invites. Look out, too, for the PioBot link we’ll send out the night before Mobility.Pioneers. This is our on-event chatbot assistant, which is now even smarter at handling and redirecting queries. The latest iteration also has speaker profiles, agenda information and Match & Meet built in, so you’ll have the option to arrange your entire event via Messenger.
See you next week? Last-minute tickets are still available here.
