IAA Mobility Visionary Club - Summer startup special - Part 1

Agile, focused, creative: Start-ups as innovation drivers in the automotive industry Who is shaping the future of mobility, innovative start-ups or the established automakers? Ideally, they are joining forces. The journey is heading toward partnership - why and how this can become a driver of innovation is discussed by the IAA MOBILITY Visionary Club in its latest episode. It is the prelude to a summer special dedicated to the topic of start-ups. Volkswagen does it. Porsche does it. Mercedes does too, as do BMW, Continental and Bosch. This list could go on and on. Hardly any manufacturer or major supplier in the automotive industry wants to do without programs such as incubators or accelerators, with which the established players seek out promising mobility startups, promote them and ideally integrate them into partnerships. This also involves corresponding investments: for example, between the beginning of 2020 and the summer of 2021 alone, automotive manufacturers have carried out private financing rounds with a total value of more than 9.6 billion U.S. dollars, calculates an analysis by the news portal Crunchbase. Joy of cooperation as a response to pressure to innovate The willingness to cooperate is also due to the pressure to innovate that is weighing on the industry and which current challenges such as the switch to e-mobility or advancing digitalization are once again noticeably increasing. "New technologies and new business models are essential for the future of mobility," says Jürgen Bilo in the IAA MOBILITY Visionar Club. Bilo is Managing Director of co-pace GmbH, Continental's start-up program. So new things are in demand, and innovations thrive particularly well in the world of start-ups: They are small, agile and have a clear advantage, as Stefan Cülter says. He is responsible for start-up cooperations and scouting at Volkswagen subsidiary CARIAD: "They have a crystal-clear focus on a niche and on one problem, whereas a large supplier, for example, has a broad target audience and has to solve virtually everyone's problems." Adding to that focus is access to billions in venture capital. CARIAD itself also invests in startups - and profits. "Watching how they approach and solve problems: We can learn a lot from that," says Cülter. Fresh cell cure meets financial injection When big names and young ideas join forces, it's ideally a two-way deal: For big companies, proximity to creative startups acts like a fresh cell cure in the best case scenario. The young companies are then innovation hotbeds and pacesetters at the same time. And the start-ups also naturally gain from collaborations with established players - even aside from the financial injections. "Big companies can scale, offer proof of technology, and they have access to huge markets," says Bilo. In addition, a big name on the customer list has charisma with signaling effects for the entire industry. On the way to new products To ensure that all sides really benefit from these partnerships, however, a clear focus is necessary, says Cülter, right from the start: "Companies often cooperate with startups just for the sake of cooperation, without it serving any purpose or solving any problems." At CARIAD, on the other hand, the strategy is to identify challenges in one's own company, address them with the help of start-up solutions, and then become a customer of the young company when it fits. The important thing is to know what you're looking for. Bilo also emphasizes this: "We look around for strategically or operationally relevant topics. We're about creating new products, new product portfolios and new strategies." This, he says, has resulted in partnerships such as the one with Apex.AI. With the company's meta operating system already certified, Continental aims to significantly shorten the development cycles of new mobility functions for automated and autonomous driving.