Even beyond the search for a cure and vaccine against COVID-19, the coronavirus is presenting companies with completely new challenges. An online platform connects companies' problems to startups that provide solutions.
How do I organize my employees under the current conditions? Which home office solutions can be implemented quickly and easily? How do I maintain supply chains and sales despite the coronavirus emergency? Companies are currently facing a whole range of new and, in some cases, existential challenges.
Startups have solutions for many of the new challenges. The platform startupsagainstcorona.com connects companies with current problems to startups with appropriate solutions. The platform is operated by 27pilots. Behind the company are Gregor Gimmy and Matthias Meyer, the two founders of BMW Startup Garage as well as Ana Carolina Alex and Maximilian Marquart, two former employees of the Munich car manufacturer's Venture Client Unit.
“It is often the solutions from startups that have the greatest impact”
The background of BMW Startup Garage also explains the idea behind the platform. The venture client approach assumes that companies depend on the innovation of startups. Startups, in turn, need companies as customers to further develop their products and validate their business models. Both sides benefit when established companies are introduced to startups as model customers.
Specifically, on startupsagainstcorona.com, companies can post problems they are struggling with in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. Startups, in return, offer their solutions, either related to the posted challenges or independent of them as general suggestions. 27pilots reviews requests and solutions, and connects startups with the companies.
“In our work, we see that it is often the solutions from startups that have the greatest impact,”
so Gregor Gimmy, Co-Founder and Managing Director at 27pilots.
“With the startupsagainstcorona.com platform, we want to make startups' innovative solutions available to companies even faster and more easily in an acute crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic.”
The platform aims to contribute to minimizing the impact of the pandemic on the economy, normalizing everyday working life, and paving the way for startups to bring solutions to market quickly and effectively.
