by Nada Welker | Jul 4, 2023 | Startups
For the 12th time, the EXPO DAY of the innovation platform Startup Autobahn powered by Plug and Play took place on 22 June 2023 under the motto “Piloting the Future” at Wagenhallen in Stuttgart. We from magility were able to see live on site which innovations and startups will shape the future.
About Startup Autobahn
In Stuttgart, the cradle of the automobile, over 30 global companies have been working together with innovative technology start-ups from all over the world on Europe’s largest open innovation platform since 2016. The focus is on solutions for the automotive, production, enterprise and sustainability sectors.
About Plug and Play
Plug and Play is a renowned innovation platform that connects startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play has a presence in over 50 locations around the world. The platform offers innovative programmes to companies and supports its corporate partners in all phases of the innovation process, from training to implementation. In addition, Plug and Play has startup accelerator programmes as well as a dedicated venture capital division to drive innovation in various industries. The company has already invested in a variety of successful companies, including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal and Rappi.
The innovation platform as a link
The Startup Autobahn innovation platform acts as a link between established companies in the sector and up-and-coming technology companies focused on the Stuttgart area. Within this platform, corporate partners and start-ups work together in joint programmes to develop prototypes, evaluate potential collaborations, test new technologies and pave the way for implementation that is as ready for production as possible. The duration of the project work between the start-ups and the established companies is six months.
Various companies have joined this initiative, including, for example:
- Daimler: As the world’s leading car manufacturer and mobility service provider, Daimler is an important pillar of Startup Autobahn and co-founder. By working closely with startups, Daimler drives innovation in the areas of vehicle technology, connectivity and sustainability.
- Porsche: As the driving force behind Startup Autobahn, Porsche has already successfully realised 80 projects, with a considerable proportion of the results being incorporated into series development. Porsche is proud to promote innovation and drive new technologies together with startups.
- University of Stuttgart: As a respected research institution, the University of Stuttgart contributes its expertise in the areas of technology development, mobility concepts and sustainability to the Startup Autobahn programme. The cooperation with startups enables the university to put innovative ideas into practice.
- Arena 2036: As a research campus for future automotive topics, Arena 2036 is an important partner of Startup Autobahn. Through close cooperation with startups, it works on groundbreaking solutions for the mobility of tomorrow.
- DXC Technology: As a leading company in the field of digital transformation, DXC Technology supports startups in the development and implementation of innovative technologies. Through close cooperation with DXC, startups gain access to extensive know-how and resources.
- ZF Friedrichshafen: ZF is a global technology group and one of the world’s leading automotive suppliers. By participating in Startup Autobahn, ZF aims to work with startups to advance new ideas and technologies and shape the future of mobility.
- Bosch: As a leading global technology and service company, Bosch is a major participant in Startup Autobahn. Bosch contributes its expertise in mobility solutions, sensor technology and software development to develop innovative solutions together with startups.
- Schaeffler: As a global automotive and industrial supplier, Schaeffler is also an important partner of Startup Autobahn. By collaborating with startups, Schaeffler aims to advance new technologies and solutions in the areas of electromobility, autonomous driving and digital connectivity.
- BASF: As one of the world’s leading chemical companies, BASF contributes its know-how and innovative strength to the Startup Autobahn programme. Together with startups, new materials, technologies and sustainable solutions for the mobility of the future are being developed.
This group of companies is committed to driving forward promising innovations and helping to shape the mobility of tomorrow.
Expo Day 2023
The Expo Day serves as a platform to present the results of Open Innovation to the public. This year, the invited guests again had numerous opportunities to learn more first-hand about transformative technologies, disruptive solutions and new concepts and collaborations. More than 1,000 invited experts, decision-makers and investors attended this year and were able to get an idea of the hottest topics in the industry during Innovation Walks, Panel Talks and presentations.
At the end of the event, exceptional results of collaboration were honoured on the main stage and recognised with three prestigious awards: the Plug and Play Global Innovation Award, the Plug and Play Cross Collaboration Award and the Plug and Play Sustainability Award. This underlined the success of the collaboration and the contribution to driving innovation in the automotive industry.
The list of speakers at Expo 2023 included the following personalities from the mobility and automotive industry:
- Barbara Frenkel, Member of the Executive Board for Procurement at Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG.
- Dr Michael Hafner, Vice President MB.OS Base Layer & MBUX at Mercedes-Benz AG.
- Jørgen Behrens, Managing Director and VP, Geo Automotive at Google.
- Mathias Pillin, CTO at Bosch Mobility.
- Saeed Amidi, CEO and founder of Plug and Play Tech Center.
- Winfried Hermann, Minister of Transport of the State of Baden-Württemberg.
- Dr Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, Minister of Economics, Labour and Tourism of the State of Baden-Württemberg.
- Lars Reger, CTO and EVP at NXP® Semiconductors.
- Michael Corcoran, President, Global Lead, Analytics & Engineering at DXC Technology.
- M. Gürcan Karakas, CEO at Togg.
- Barbara Wittenberg, CTO at 1KOMMA5°.
- Jan-Maarten de Vries, President Fleet Management Solutions at Bridgestone Mobility Solutions.
Magility Insights
As in previous years, we from magility were live on site, participated in innovation walks, took a closer look at the start-up scene represented there and met many old and new business partners from our network. We noticed that many of the start-ups exhibiting at the Expo presented solutions or partial solutions for the Software Defined Car and battery management. Other topics included smart infrastructure, interiors for the future, supply chain solutions and sustainability.
However, we also noticed that the full potential of AI has not yet been integrated into the business models and technology solutions of the participating start-ups and that start-ups with newly developed AI solutions that promise real leaps in innovation were not present. There were partial AI solutions for production and automation and AI content creation, e.g. for the presentation of seminar content, presented by an avatar that looks almost like the creator and speaks in the AI-animated voice of the creator.
Magility Insights to click through:
We look forward to the next Startup Autobahn Expo with hopefully exciting AI solutions for an innovative and sustainable future! Do you have a startup and need support to enter the market? Or do you have an established company and want to expand or change your business model? Feel free to contact us right here, we are happy to help with our B2B Market Development experts!
by Nada Welker | Jul 18, 2022 | Automotive Industry, Future Trends, Know-How and inspiration, Market development & Trends, New Mobility, Startups, strategy in change
The startup industry is currently at a crossroads. Founders have long complained about how difficult the issue of financing has become. While young companies were able to quickly raise a lot of venture capital until last year, many of these founders are now facing the challenge of sustainably financing further growth. Last but not least, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have also contributed to the increasing pressure for venture capital-funded tech startups. In Stuttgart, the national and international startup scene met for the 12th Startup Autobahn Expo Day, to discuss, among other things, where startups and the financing industry are headed in the future.
Are the golden years for tech startups over?
Plunging share prices, waves of layoffs – the current crisis on the global markets is hitting even supposedly successful companies. Whether it’s Klarna, Gorillas or Tesla, startups and large tech companies alike are currently struggling with major turbulence worldwide. Venture capitalists prefer to hold back the previously cheap money, startups are no longer looking at the next big leap in growth, but at whether they will survive the next half year. According to the tracking site layoffs.fyi, about 50,000 employees have been laid off in the startup industry worldwide since the beginning of 2022. Even in Israel, the country with one of the biggest startup scenes in the world, the big boom seems to be over. While investments in tech startups were still at $25 billion in 2021, the pace has dropped significantly this year. A trend that, by all accounts, looks set to continue. Rising interest rates, the Ukraine war and, above all, the shortage of skilled workers in the software sector are taking their toll on Israel’s flagship industry. Many startups are cutting back on spending, and investors have become more selective.
And although Germany has a large network of investors and business angels, which is now also recognized worldwide, startups in the early stages in particular have found it increasingly difficult to generate sufficient capital to scale. Due to the increased risk in the early founding phase, traditional bank financing is not available to most startups – they then have to access venture capital. The German market has developed a lot for this in recent years, but in an international comparison, Germany still only ranks in the middle. The majority of financing is provided by foreign investors from the USA and Asia. And even in later financing phases, they are usually ahead of the pack; a development that is causing the current German government a major headache in terms of innovative strength and safeguarding know-how and jobs in Germany.
The startup ecosystem in Germany has developed rapidly: already in 2020, almost 400,000 people were working at a startup. By 2030, that number is expected to double. And in terms of venture capital, Germany was also ahead in a European comparison in 2021: 15 billion euros were invested in startups. If there were 25 so-called “unicorns” (startups with a market valuation of at least one billion U.S. dollars) in Germany in 2020, this number is to be doubled in Europe by 2030. The German government is working to ensure that this can be realized: Europe and Germany are to be maintained and developed as a strong tech startup location. Based on the “EU Digital Decade 2030,” an initiative of the European Commission led by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Europe and Germany are to be made fit for the digital transformation. In addition to the implementation of digital services and the expansion of high-speed Internet in rural and urban areas, strengthening Europe as a location for start-ups is at the top of the agenda. To this end, the German government has announced a 10-point plan that is part of a consistent startup strategy:
- Strengthen funding for startups
- Make it easier for startups to attract talent and make employee ownership more attractive
- Ignite startup spirit, make startups easier and more digital
- Strengthen female startup founders and diversity
- Facilitate startup spinoffs from academia
- Improve framework conditions for public benefit-oriented startups
- Mobilize startup skills for public contracts
- Make it easier for startups to access data
- Strengthen reallabs (test spaces for innovation and regulation)
- Put startups at the center
This strategy is expected to be approved by the federal cabinet in the summer, followed by implementation and regular monitoring. However, it remains to be seen how the situation in the industry might have worsened by then.
The startup scene is reinventing itself
The fact that the current crises in the world and on the financial markets are preoccupying all industries was also noticeable at the 12th Expo Day in Stuttgart, which finally took place again this summer on site at the Wizemann Areal in Stuttgart. There, more than 1,000 interested people and 27 startups met on three stages to exchange information about current projects and future topics. Startup Autobahn powered by Plug and Play is an open innovation platform for tech startups from the automotive, mechanical engineering, health and enterprise industries, with now more than 30 renowned industry partners (including Mercedes-Benz, Webasto, Bosch or Deutsche Post). The aim of the Accelerator is to develop joint pilot projects, which are then presented to the general public at the Expo Day, which takes place twice a year.
The focus of the opening keynote by Ola Källenius, head of Mercedes Benz Group AG, was “Transformation and Innovation at Mercedes Benz” with two major challenges: Decarbonization, i.e. achieving CO2 neutrality, and digitalization in the vehicle. With the development of the Vision EQXX concept vehicle, he said Mercedes is at least 10 years ahead of the industry, which is committed to a holistic overall approach to CO2 reduction in the supply chain, production and the vehicle itself. He predicts a 100% electric future for the Stuttgart automaker, which should become a reality by the end of 2030 at the latest. On the subject of the digitized vehicle, Källenius spoke about the coexistence of software and hardware and the immense potential for innovation in this area. Here, innovation often comes through cooperation – many tech startups were also involved in the Vision EQXX, which developed from pilot projects at Startup Autobahn, such as UBQ materials from Israel or Ventus from Stuttgart. “Efficiency is the new currency of the EV area,” Källenius says, and this can only be realized by challenging the status quo as often as possible.

Tanja Rückert, CDO at Bosch, talked about the fact that collaboration with tech startups brings great benefits for both sides in her panel. Of course, the strategic fit must first be clear, especially from the customer’s point of view. But what concrete advantages do startups and companies have when they join forces strategically? For startups: resources, processes and scalability, for companies: Agility and streamlining of innovation cycles.
Saori Dubourg (MoB BASF) brought a completely new perspective on sustainability in startup financing to the stage in her presentation “The future needs a better design”. Until recently, the goal was to invest as much as possible (“volume”) – in the future, the focus, in all areas, but also in financing, is on the sustainable use of resources (“value”). Worldwide, investments in ESG funds have risen to an incredible 2.57 trillion US dollars – so future investment strategies will focus more and more on social and environmental benefits, rather than purely financial growth.
The women-only panel, led by Natascha Zeljko, Co-Founder and Chief Editor at F10 FemaleOneZero & CURAZE, focused on how much opportunity the current crisis brings. The central question was: How many companies have really understood that constant change and continuous questioning of the status quo is essential for business success? Prof. Dr. Katharina Hölzle (University of Stuttgart & Fraunhofer IAO) argued that the understanding for change is now there, but the radical implementation of it is still not happening in many companies. The younger generation in particular has already internalized the idea of transformation. However, it is now the task of schools and universities to provide these people with the tools for implementation. Katharina Hopp (Bosch) made it clear that innovation is the only way out of crises. Especially as a hardware manufacturer, Bosch is forced to enter into strategic alliances with software startups. When it comes to diversity in the startup scene, women are still underrepresented, she said. They need to become more visible, network better and, above all, find role models. Nicole Büttner (Merantix Momentum) mentioned here the entrepreneur and founder Verena Pausder, who together with five other female entrepreneurs recently announced her investment in the women’s team of the soccer club 1. FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin. Their goal is no less than to change the German sports world for good.

Our conclusion of the day:
- the capital in the market is still there, and needs to be distributed
- it’s “back to the basics”: in the future, only tech startups whose ideas are really good and also sustainably successful will be able to persist
- a crisis is the best time to start a company
- The speed of financing rounds will slow down from about 18 months to 24 to 30 months.
- Diversity in companies needs clear structures, role models and KPIs
To drive innovation in your own company, it is worthwhile to collaborate with suitable startups. At magility, we help you make the right contacts in our international tech startup network. Contact us now – we’ll be happy to answer your questions.
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