For the 4th year, the European Startup Prize for mobility (EUSP) has opened applications for startups from all over Europe to submit their ground-breaking sustainable mobility technologies. Three EIC-funded companies were selected for the Top 50 – Addionics, DiGas and Velco – and Zeleros is in the Top 10, with the opportunity of taking part in the Grand Ceremony hosted by EUSP on 19 May 2022.
After receiving more than 560 submissions from 38 different countries, the EUSP’s jury ranked their applicants in a Top 50 of the most promising startups in sustainable mobility. From this smaller group, the jury did a new assessment and selected the final Top 10 companies, that were the best in showing how their solutions can make mobility more sustainable and inclusive. Below, we present you the innovations developed by our EIC beneficiaries that landed them with a place in these two Tops promoted by the European Startup Prize for mobility.
Zeleros – Top 10 European Startups in Clean Mobility
Imagine travelling from Paris to Berlin (878km) in less than an hour. Cheaper, faster, and greener travel is what Spanish startup Zeleros offers with their hyperloop. This new form of ground transport promises speeding up to 1,000km/h through a network of low-pressure tubes. Thanks to its fully electric powertrain, it can make hundred-mile journeys more sustainable with 0 direct emissions.
This solution is considered one of the biggest innovations in transportation since the commercialisation of air transport. The system, based on pods that travel inside a tube with close to vacuum conditions, allows it to reach 1,000 km/h, combining the speed of the plane, the convenience of the train and the periodicity of the metro. Zeleros claims that a European hyperloop network could reduce more than 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year, providing a sustainable alternative to connect main cities and logistic hubs. The hyperloop developed by the Spanish startup can be up to 5 to 10 times more energy-efficient than an airplane for the same inland route and operate with 0 direct emissions, thanks to its fully electric powertrain.
The Spanish startup was one of the Winners of the European Startup Prize for Mobility prize backed by European Investment Bank and co-founded by European Parliament MEP Karima Delli. The startup stood out among the 563 applications received this year and joined the Top 10 European Startups in Clean Mobility.
We spoke with Juan Vicén, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Zeleros, about this achievement from the EIC-funded company.
"Zeleros' mission is to enable sustainable intercity travel at unprecedented speeds and zero direct emissions with our scalable hyperloop system. This complex challenge requires global cooperation, and that's why the European Startup Prize for Mobility is so important for us. It brings us the opportunity to engage with Europe's largest investors (including the European Investment Bank), big corporations and Institutions, which are key for accelerating our hyperloop project. We are looking forward to engaging with all of them and keep expanding our European Hyperloop Development initiative, which has as an objective to create a robust value chain in Europe and provide a basis for the deployment of the European Hyperloop network", said Juan Vicén, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Zeleros.
Over the last eight months, Zeleros participated in the World Expo in Dubai, receiving visits from high-level government officials and millions of visitors. The startup is now preparing new tests in the Port of Sagunto:
"This year, we will test our novel linear motor launcher technology, which will be applicable not only for hyperloop but also for decarbonisation and automatisation of port operations, moving containers with high efficiency. Spain has also announced plans to create a European Hyperloop Development centre in the coming years, which will be useful to validate all integrated technologies at high speeds. And parallelly, we will keep working with the European Commission to define the needed regulatory and standards framework for safe operations of the hyperloop by 2030", concluded Juan.
Addionics - Top 50 European Startups in Clean Mobility
Electric vehicles have the largest potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. Addionics, an Israeli/U.K. startup, develops rechargeable batteries through intelligent 3D battery architecture and engineering for electric vehicles and other applications. With a novel 3D metal fabrication method, the company enhances the performance, mileage, safety, cost and charging time of batteries.
The company is initially targeting the automotive market and sees its technology finding a place in other products such as consumer electronics, medical devices, grid energy storage, drones, etc. The company is building an all-battery powered future that can live longer and generate less waste.
Last month, the EIC-funded startup closed a Series A funding round with a large group of investors, raising $27 million (around €24 million). According to Moshiel Biton, co-founder & CEO of Addionics, the company hopes to use the investment to make their business grow, contributing to the global sustainability goals:
"The investment will help the company achieve its development, expansion, and commercialisation goals, on our way to building the best battery architecture in the market. This is a part of our vision to deliver a product that will accelerate electrification to create a better and more sustainable future for all of us".
DiGas - Top 50 European Startups in Clean Mobility
Although trains are seen as an eco-friendlier mean of transportation, in fact, more than half of the world’s railway locomotives are powered by diesel engines, which highly contributed to polluting our atmosphere. DiGas’ operation is focused on providing a sustainable solution to this issue: their proprietary patented dual-fuel technology is tailored for a wide range of locomotive engines, providing diesel like power performance, but without the harmful emissions and particulate matter that causes pollution.
The advantage of the technology of this EIC-funded startup from Latvia lays in the use of natural gas. A dual fuel mode engine is a diesel engine which is adjusted to operate on diesel and natural gas simultaneously, by substituting diesel fuel with natural gas, that is cheaper, cleaner and more sustainable.
We met with Edgars Kass, COO of DiGas, who told us what it meant for the company to be featured in this Top 50 and what they’re planning ahead:
"It shows us that we are heading in the right direction and our technology brings value to all stakeholders - from railway operators to society in general. Realising the urgent needs of the environment we are planning to make advancements into the hydrogen field. Our plan is to make those systems financially feasible, the same as we did with our present product - Natural gas retrofit kit for diesel locomotive propulsion".
Velco - Top 50 European Startups in Clean Mobility
To make urban mobility more sustainable by leveraging on new technologies for connectivity is the motto of Velco. The French startup has developed an innovative urban navigation device that is able to connect electric bikes. Through connectivity, Velco’s technology can enhance the end-user mobility experience and increase the performance and margins of mobility professionals. Besides the IoT solutions that Velco provides to e-bikes’ users that benefit from their technologies for professional reasons, the company also has an app dedicated to individual users.
Estelle Monnet, Communication Manager at Velco, talked to us about the next steps for the company:
"Velco’s ambition is to become the European leader of connected solutions for e-bikes by 2024. As we address our solutions to all the players of the cycle industry, our next steps would be to build strong partnerships with assemblers, create smartbikes with e-bike brands and deploy connected e-bike fleets all around Europe".
About being listed in this top, Estelle explains how this is an incentive for Velco to keep pursuing their goals:
"Being in the Top 50 clean mobility European startups is a recognition of our daily work to transform mobility for sustainability. Cycling is a major stake for mobility, and we think we have a big responsibility in making e-bikes more attractive through connectivity, in order to seduce more and more cyclists. We are a team of 40 passionate people, dreaming about another mobility, one that would be safe, green and that would bring people happiness. We are working every day to make it come true with a strong vision and project of digitization for our whole industry".
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.