Esslingen, 5 November 2019 – The traffic transformation is running in top gear. As an innovative company, Eberspaecher is playing an active role in shaping this with automotive components that conserve resources and the environment while also keeping driving comfort and safety in focus. Together with the innovation platform Startup Autobahn, the Esslingen-based automotive supplier is systematically expanding its future fields and looking for innovative, young technology companies.
The cooperation between Eberspaecher and Startup Autobahn started on 1 November 2019. “We are committed to a strong long-term partnership to find innovative solutions and creative startups on the market,” emphasizes Edgar Müller, Vice President of Next Shed by Eberspaecher. Next Shed bundles the activities of the Esslingen-based automotive supplier into defined fields of the future and systematically searches the market for new technologies. For Müller, the sound experience of the innovation platform founded by Daimler, the Plug and Play Tech Center, the University of Stuttgart and ARENA2036 in May 2016 was very important as the basis for this partnership. It creates an optimal interface between industry-leading companies and young technology companies. “We aren’t a typical startup accelerator, but rather offer a complete ecosystem for successful cooperation,” says Sascha Karimpour, Managing Director at Plug & Play Germany, who is operationally supporting Startup Autobahn. The common goal of the partner companies is to find marketable, production-ready solutions to shape the mobility of tomorrow while fulfilling, today, the future requirements of end customers and legislators.
Open to innovation by tradition
As a traditional company with a company history spanning 150 years, Eberspaecher has always been open to new technology, new markets, and new challenges. “Our company history shows how we have very successfully reinvented ourselves time and again over the years,” points out Heinrich Baumann, Managing Partner of the Eberspaecher Group and initiator of Next Shed. The work fields extend beyond the automotive supplier’s core areas of heating and cooling. They are on the lookout for partners for innovative mobility solutions and mobile energy storage systems. Intelligent acoustic systems and approaches to improving air quality belong to their field of activities, in addition to autonomous systems.
Professional working environment for joint projects
Eberspaecher will specifically identify suitable startups through the existing Startup Autobahn network. At the Esslingen headquarters, a team of creative minds named Next Shed advises internal and external venture teams and offers the necessary industrial infrastructure, networks and expertise to the contacts established through Startup Autobahn. The family-owned company is actively open to creative solutions. The opportunities for cooperation with the young technology companies can range from pilot projects and co-development through to investments.
More information on Next Shed by Eberspaecher
nextshed.io
More information on Startup Autobahn powered by Plug and Play
startup-autobahn.com
plugandplaytechcenter.com
Contact for journalists:
Anja Kaufer
Head of Corporate Communications
Eberspaecher Group
Telephone: +49 711 939-0250
press[at]eberspaecher.com
***
About Eberspaecher:
With approximately 10,000 employees at 80 locations worldwide, the Eberspaecher Group is one of the automotive industry’s leading system developers and suppliers. The family business, headquartered in Esslingen am Neckar, stands for innovative solutions in exhaust technology, automotive electronics and thermal management for a broad range of vehicle types. Eberspaecher components and systems provide more comfort, greater safety and a cleaner environment on or off the road. In 2018, the Group generated revenue of around 4.6 billion euros.
About Startup Autobahn:
STARTUP AUTOBAHN is an innovation platform powered by Plug and Play. It provides an interface between industry-leading corporations and innovative tech companies. At the heart of the semi-annual program is the corporate partner collaboration with startups on an eye to eye level to evaluate the fit for both parties, pilot their technology and achieve the ultimate goal – a successful production-ready implementation. Designed to go beyond just startup acceleration, STARTUP AUTOBAHN moderates an ecosystem for collaboration. It drives cultural mindset change as well as sharing of company best practices in a neutral environment to push digitization across corporate structures and value chains. In May 2016 Daimler, Plug and Play Tech Center, the University of Stuttgart and ARENA2036 founded STARTUP AUTOBAHN as an open innovation platform with global reach. Since then they have teamed up with Anchor Partners Hewlett Packard Enterprise, DXC Technology, ZF Friedrichshafen, BASF, Porsche, Deutsche Post DHL Group, Webasto, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, Samvardhana Motherson, T-Systems, WABCO as well as Ecosystem Partners Murata, The Linde Group, AGC Glass Europe, Wieland Ventures, Jardine Matheson Limited, Covéa, Cepsa, Bleistahl, BP, Hyundai, TÜV Rheinland, Yanfeng Automotive Interiors, Schnellecke, Eberspächer, and Post Italiane to bring the idea of open innovation to life.
