The Munich-based startup blik won the Startup Pitch Night hosted by RIO, the digital brand of the Volkswagen Truck and Bus Group. The company prevailed against a total of around 70 competitors and climbed onto the winner's podium at the end of the evening.
Startups from the logistics sector were invited to apply for the RIO Accelerator program in advance. The final selection round took place at the Pitch Night in Munich on July 13, 2017. A total of over 70 startups applied for the program.
"RIO has set itself the goal of making the entire transport and logistics ecosystem more transparent and digitally developing it further through an open and collaborative approach. Partners are a strategically important cornerstone for us in this regard. The mostly completely innovative solutions pursued by the young companies in the industry enable us to jointly develop new, unprecedented business models. This enables us to live up to our claim to be a pioneer in the digitalization of logistics. Ultimately, all of this serves to make the transport and logistics ecosystem more profitable in the long term."
so Markus Lipinsky, CEO of RIO. And continued:
“We thrive on the pioneering and innovative spirit of the startup scene, with the goal of creating more efficient logistics solutions for the industry!”
50,000 euros and know-how
The winner was selected at a location in downtown Munich. The seven finalists from a total of over 70 applicants had the chance to present their startup as the best choice for the winner. This required a great deal of creativity, and the effort was worthwhile. The candidates not only competed for a financial support of €50,000 for the pilot project but the winner will also receive a prize provided by RIO Mentoring and coaching program to further develop its digital services and integrate them into RIO. The latter represents a great opportunity for startups to enter the market and access a large number of potential customers right from the start.
The candidates who made it to the final round of the Startup Pitch Night were MAIoT (solutions for predictive maintenance), Evertracker (process automation through AI), blik (intelligent sensor data for transparent logistics), Transport Heroes (freight exchange), Lexatexer (Predictive analytics software), Smartlane (tool for route optimization in delivery logistics) and Sensefinity (IoT project for proactive cloud chain management). The jury, composed of four members of the RIO management and Professor Thomas Strothotte, President of Kühne Logistics University Hamburg, selected view as the winner of the first pilot project.
"I believe RIO and blik complement each other very well because we strive to create transparency in warehouses and production facilities, and RIO does the same for freight routes. Together, we create synergies and significant added value for our customers."
says Philip Eller, the COO at view.
