Factory1: The Hunt for a Proof of Concept is Not a Piece of Cake

It’s been 16 intense weeks. 16 weeks, during which five international startups are working on fire to set up a Proof of Concept (PoC) together with the Austrian technology company Kapsch. 16 weeks in which the founders from Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and Russia traveled not only to Vienna, but also to Silicon Valley to take part in the acceleration weeks of the startup accelerator Factory1 by Kapsch.

„We are on track“

„We are on track with all of our major milestones,“ says Vivien Dollinger, CEO of Objectbox. This is important because on June 18, Objectbox and the founders of the other four startups – Aerostate, Exeon Analytics, Bestmile and DerQ  – will present their PoCs to selected industry experts and the top management of Kapsch on Demo Day 2K19 in Vienna. The goal: The PoCs are to serve as a basis for further cooperation between the startups and the Austrian tech company.

„We want to establish real relationships with the startups“, says Simrit Sandhu, Program Lead of Factory1. „Kapsch is interested in helping the startups scale by jointly bringing innovative products and services to the market that complement the Kapsch portfolio.“

Integrating, integrating, integrating

The four months in the Accelerator Program are hard work. While Objectbox, which specializes in edge computing, is working on storing and processing data in trains, Bestmile from Switzerland is working on integrating its Demand Responsive Transportation (DRT) solution into a Mobility as a Service platform (MaaS) of the Kapsch subsidiary Fluidtime.

The Moscow-based startup Aerostate, headquartered in the USA, worked on a PoC for Spain`s capital Madrid. There, the founders will develop a system to measure air pollution with sensors and, based on this, distribute traffic in the city smarter.

Meanwhile, DerQ’s founder took a trip to a small village in Lower Austria. There they test how they can warn connected cars about pedestrians at intersections using AI software and V2X communication . Meanwhile, Exeon Analytics from Switzerland is testing a possible integration of its cyber security solution at Kapsch.

Potentials unfolding

At an interim report in Vienna, the startups showed that they are on track with their projects. On June 18, they will be presented in Vienna – whereupon it will be shown which potentials the PoCs can actually unfold.