GTLK and partners selected 11 startups for cooperation

Startup pitch session for GTLK corporate accelerator powered by GenerationS was held in Moscow on March 16, 2020. Teams from Russia, Germany, Canada, Israel, Singapore, Estonia, Finland and Armenia, presented their innovative solutions. The majority of the startups presented cross-industry technologies, which might be applicable in various segments of the transport industry.

Each startup had only 5 minutes to present its technology, to highlight its innovation aspects, uniqueness, and competitiveness, and to describe how they see the integration of their technology in the business processes of GTLK and partners. The presentation of these projects was followed by a 5 minutes Q&A session.

Startups presented solutions in the field of air, railway, passenger, and cargo transport, as well as cross-industry projects for transport infrastructure. As the result 11 most promising startups were selected by GTLK and partners for future cooperation. The next step within the framework of the joint project between GTLK and GenerationS will be industrial acceleration.

All accelerator participants will be involved in a three-month project development program and will have an opportunity to run pilot tests to handle real business challenges. Based on results of the acceleration the best startups will have an opportunity to scale up their technology together with GTLK and partners.

Sergey Khramagin, General Director of PJSC GTLK: ‘GTLK accelerator is a large-scale integrated project, the first of its kind so far. It covers all the challenges existing today in the transport sector. We are sure that Russian startups have a high potential, therefore our aim is to have the better half of the projects presented by local teams. Today we selected 11 projects for future piloting where two projects were from outside of Russia. These technologies will help to break some existing industry barriers and to develop new market growth opportunities’.

Ekaterina Petrova, Director of GenerationS Corporate Accelerator noted: ‘The uniqueness of our cooperation with GTLK is a complex approach: in addition to startups scouting we are also creating the innovation processes within the company itself. This allows straight from the beginning of the scouting campaign to perform a target selection of projects and to have a prepared team of managers in the company to work with innovations. We received applications not only from Russian startups, but from foreign as well: more than 20% of the projects were presented by foreign technologies aiming to penetrate the Russian market and to expand here. Selected startups will be able to launch pilots, to prepare for the investments, or to create joint projects with GTLK and accelerator partners - leading transport sector companies. High interest in accelerator program showed by large industrial companies confirms a big demand for technologies and digitalization that influences the positive development of the transport industry’.

GTLK corporate accelerator was launched in August 2019 as a complex program of development the innovation projects, aimed at scouting and implementing advanced solutions in the transport industry. GenerationS, platform for developing corporate innovations acts as a technology partner of GTLK. The main objective of the accelerator is not only a search of breakthrough solutions in the transport industry, but also supporting partner in finding new markets, points of growth, and opportunity for both producers and for consumers.