After two months of work, “ATOM Mobility Hub” accelerator participants presented their business ideas to compete for prizes worth more than €30 000. The grand prize was awarded to “SHRINK”, a British student-run company aiming to launch a socially conscious scooter sharing platform targeted at UK university campuses. The winning team received services from accelerator partners meant to help them kickstart their business faster and more effective.
Back in August, “ATOM Mobility” together with innovation management company “Helve”, announced an open call for “ATOM Mobility Hub”, a free venture-building program helping ambitious entrepreneurs to build their mobility companies from zero. The nine-week program ended on December 1st, 2022, with participant business pitches to mobility industry experts and investors.
“It was a great pleasure to see the growth of all the participants throughout the program. They not only evolved their business ideas, but also managed to adapt to both market demands and the strict European regulations. We also got to see some real creativity when it came to teams planning to operate in markets with a lack of necessary regulations and infrastructure, such as in Egypt and Ethiopia. However, despite the specifics of each market, mobility markets in general are highly competitive. Thus, the time teams spend on the development phase can be crucial for their future business viability. Programs like “ATOM Mobility Hub” give entrepreneurs the necessary knowledge and resources to save valuable time when trying to bring their solutions to market as quickly as possible,” says Aris Brencis, Innovation Project Manager at “Helve” and ”ATOM Mobility Hub” Accelerator Manager.
The program culminated with business pitches to mobility industry experts and investors. In the final challenge, the teams were evaluated by Oli Harris (Funderbeam), Claudia Budrekaite (70ventures), Venkatesh Gopal (Movmi) and Peter West (EIT Urban Mobility).
After evaluating the pitch presentations as well as each teams’ overall progress during the program, the student-led company “SHRINK” from the UK was announced as the most promising team. “SHRINK” aims to launch a socially conscious scooter sharing platform targeted at UK university campuses, encouraging students to use more sustainable means of transportation. The company uniquely plans to offer their service for free in the evening hours between 21:00 and 22:00 to encourage students to get home safely. For the winners “ATOM Mobility” will develop a free scooter sharing app, which will allow them to get up and running faster and become profitable in their first year of business. The company will also receive support to attract funding from the investment fundraising platform “Funderbeam”, as well as other support services from “Adyen”, “Fluctuo” and “KNOT”. The prized services amount to financial support of more than €30 000.
The programme also announced four second prize winners, who will have the opportunity to use simplified ATOM Mobility application solutions and receive support from programme partners Funderbeam, Adyen, Fluctuo, KNOT, Sumsum and Movmi. The prizes will go to:
SWAP City – a Latvian company that plans to launch a car-sharing service next autumn, offering special two-seat electric cars with easily swappable batteries. The economical design will make these electric cars particularly convenient for use in the city center and will be more cost-effective compared to the other providers in the current market.
Mobi-EV – an Egyptian company working to provide scooter sharing services in local tourist cities, filling an unfilled market niche while taking advantage of Egypt’s low energy prices.
JETT – a French company offering a long-term subscription service for scooters, including vehicle maintenance, insurance and even a helmet for the rider. The company has already started operations and plans to offer new types of vehicles for subscription in the future.
Drop – Romanian logistics platform serving delivery companies and their couriers, offering environmentally friendly vehicles and enabling couriers to rent their vehicles when not in use.
Out of more than 100 applications, 12 promising teams from 11 countries were selected to develop various shared mobility, ride-hailing, and on-demand services as part of “ATOM Mobility Hub” accelerator. With the support of mentors, the selected teams delved into areas important for the company’s further growth, such as market research, product development, business modeling, financial planning and attracting investment.
