Taking start-ups to success

The mission of STARTUP AUTOBAHN is to bring the world’s best start-ups to Stuttgart. Porsche has been a partner since February 2017 and is actively working to make Europe's largest innovation platform even more successful.

The program focuses on the enhancement of technologies to prepare for project maturity. Start-ups that have made a convincing presentation on "Selection Day" will work on pilot projects with company project teams. The start-ups also receive special coaching from mentors and partner companies for three months, including focus weeks and monthly network meetings. During this time, the start-ups will have access to the coworking space and the hardware lab in Arena2036. They also get access to the Plug and Play global network. The aim is to inspire potential investors at the final Expo Day. Initial funding depends on the start-up’s degree of maturity.

Porsche continues to pursue its innovation offensive with STARTUP AUTOBAHN. "This will give our innovation culture a further boost," says Porsche CEO Oliver Blume. "External impulses from top talents on the international start-up scene are accelerating our progress. To this end, we offer start-ups an environment in which they can fully exploit their potential and concentrate on their work. Pilots create prototypes for specific applications. The aim of our push is to make Porsche the leading provider of digital mobility solutions in the premium car segment."

Porsche NEXT OI Competion.

One example of the successful cooperation between start-ups and companies is the open-innovation platform developed together with the start-up HighMobility – the Porsche NEXT OI Competition. In this open competition, freelance developers, start-ups, students or internal Porsche developers can use app mock-ups in a protected environment, build their own applications from them and present and test them virtually using a vehicle emulator. Topics such as infotainment, navigation, parking applications or chassis play a role here.