Our recently concluded Female Founders in Mobility innovation competition surfaced unique, market-ready technology solutions across automotive, aviation, energy, microtransit, supply chain, and smart cities reflecting the trends within the transportation industry at large. One significant trend, which several applicants addressed, is connected-cars and data. With the rise of autonomous vehicles and smart cities, it is essential to have the right data for vehicles to safely communicate with each other on the road. Moreover, these communications will allow for efficient multimodal transportation models. After surveying our judges we observed that this will be one of the main transportation models used in the near future.
Which of the following transportation models do you think will be most prevalent in 2030?
Interestingly, connected car startups in our applicant pool are less than 3 years old and have only raised an average of approximately $4 million in venture capital funding, showing that the technology is still in its infancy. Additionally, 95% of these applicants are targeting B2B clients - primarily governments, municipalities, and large fleet operators.
Here are several of the most interesting and unique startups who applied to the competition and have relevant solutions:
BLUESPACE.AI (Santa Clara, CA) provides an industry-defining autonomous vehicle (AV) technology to enable accessible, affordable, and safer AV service for mass transit (i.e. buses). The founding team is composed of AV veterans who have launched public AV services in the United States. BlueSpace.ai’s verifiably safer AV technology will realize driverless service in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner globally. Our go-to-market partners include smart cities, transit authorities, fleet operators, OEMs, and Tier 1s who need to solve for: (a), driver shortage (impacting ridership, service interruption); (b), congestion solution by offering high occupancy vehicle; and (c), pollution alleviation by making electric vehicles into AVs.
METAWAVE’s (Palo Alto, CA) radar platform, SPEKTRA, is able to reach a high angular resolution from the analog space due to its ability to form a very narrow beam that is steered to see its surroundings, enabling it to distinguish between objects right next to each other, such as a car and/or bike. Its narrow beam in the analog domain enables it to quickly detect objects in the vehicle’s field of view with very high accuracy while avoiding interference. Its focused beams and small cross-sections allow SPEKTRA to detect objects, such as pedestrians and hazardous road objects, at long ranges and in all weather conditions. Further, the narrow beam and high angular precision allows SPEKTRA to track cross-traffic, a difficult problem for traditional radar.
REMIX (San Francisco, CA) is the leading platform for urban mobility. Public agencies choose Remix for being easy-to-use and delightful, but more importantly, it allows departments to break down their silos with a shared tool and common language. Remix currently offers three use cases: (a), Transit Planning: The first planning platform for public transit. Design, evaluate, and collaborate all in one place - from a small detour to a full system redesign; (b), Street Planning: Explore new street design concepts, make data-driven decisions, and implement your early-stage transportation projects faster; (c), Mobility Management: Coordinate shared mobility programs with partners to accomplish safety, equity, and sustainability goals.
As a Contributing Sponsor to the competition, the Lear Corporation has recognized that connected cars and data will significantly shape the industry going forward. This is most clearly demonstrated by their interest in seeking to grow their $5.5 billion-a-year electronics business to a targeted $8 billion by 2025, and by positioning the Lear Innovation Ventures arm in Silicon Valley and ahead of its competitors. Not to mention their support and sponsorship of Quesnay’s inaugural Female Founders in Mobility competition!
For more information about the Female Founders in Mobility 2020 innovation competition, click here.
For more information on how to become a sponsor, partner, or participant of future innovation competitions, or for any general inquiries, please contact us.