EIC ePitching with Investors on Mobility: speeding up your investment

Every month the European Innovation Council organise an ‘EIC ePitching with Investors’ around a dedicated topic. On 14 May 2020 the theme of the session was Mobility & Transport, which brought together seven high-class EIC-backed SMEs with six investors firms. Transmetrics AD, a Bulgarian start-up, took home the prize for ‘best pitch’. 

The seven innovators had the opportunity to pitch their company to an investor jury consisting out of representatives from Earlybird, Munich Venture Partners, Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, Siemens Mobility, InMotion Ventures, Maniv Mobility and WBX Ventures. Afterwards the jury members could ask a range of questions and ultimately vote for ‘best pitch’. For the first time, the ePitching with Investors also futured pre-arranged one-to-one session, where investors and SMEs could sit down and discuss a possible follow-up.

Trends in the mobility-sector

As most sectors worldwide are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the mobility and transport-sector is no different. The attending investors went into a few changes and trends that they foresee for the future. Nate Jaret, investor from Israeli-based Maniv Mobility, is seeing plenty of opportunities in alternative mobility:

“Many forms of alternative mobility are becoming more and more attractive. We talked about the death of the personal car for many years, I can see many people moving towards other forms personal mobility now”. An important factor is the reduced commitment they required: “These forms of alternative mobility are cost-effective, flexible ways to get around. They don’t require long-term commitments, which is of course beneficial in these unsure times. You don’t buy a car when you’re fearful for your job.”

Sebastian Peck Managing Director at InMotion Ventures, an affiliate of Jaguar Land Rover, is expecting an upsurge in investment of connected car technology: “Investments in autonomous vehicle technology will become much more focused on short term benefits to improve vehicle safety.” He also underlines the opportunity for the automotive industry: “We are really bullish about the service application layer sitting on top of the emerging connected car infrastructure. If the industry gets this right we could see some amazing innovations. “ 

Geography is key

With SMEs pitching from all four corners of Europe, the diversity of the EIC-portfolio was clearly on display. The winner of this month’s session hailed from Bulgaria. Transmetrics AD, represented by CEO Asparuh Koev, pitched predictive optimization products for the cargo transport industry:

“We’ve only just won the grant in February. It’s a highly competitive programme so we are glad we got in”. The ‘EIC ePitching with Investors’ meant Asparuh’s first encounter with the Business Acceleration Services: “The event seemed like good fit for our company, we went in without a set agenda. Of course, we are always open to meet investors, and this was a great opportunity”.

For Nate and Maniv Mobility, the last few years meant an increased geographic focus on Europe: “As an Israeli firm we historically invested in the US and Israel. The last years we are viewing Europa as a key geography. There are huge opportunities, high quality start-ups, especially in the mobility-sector.” For Sebastian, the geographic selection of the companies was key in attending this session: “In the EIC-portfolio there are SMEs coming from all over Europe. I think this is a distinctive feature of the EIC that investors really value.”

Another important aspect of the ‘EIC ePitching with Investors’ is that the start-ups are selected by the investor jury beforehand, thereby making sure the fit between SMEs and investors is optimal. Ralf Krista and Kalle Warner from Siemens Mobility found this a distinct advantage: “Its great to be included in the selection beforehand. Some of the SMES that we pre-selected made the final round and we could see them in action. We found a few companies that are very close to what we do, there could be some additions or alternate fits for us.” Asparuh concluded that pre-selection was also a benefit from the SME-side: “I received good feedback and tailored questions form the investors. They seemed to understand the start-ups and the sector well.”

Are you looking forward to pitching your ideas to top-class investors? 

We host regular ‘EIC ePitching  with Investors’ based on your company profiles in ScaleUp EU. Our next ePitching session will be on the topic of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and ICT-solutions. Keep an eye on our events page for more information on future events. 

If you are interested in joining, don’t miss out and update your profile information straight away. If you need help, please contact us through our contact page (choose ScaleUp EU: claim access).