Startup Matchmaking at the Hanover Fair 2018

Hanover Fair in 2018 
The partner of this year’s Hanover Fair was Mexico, which had brought along some startups as well as some exhibitors. The organizers of this year’s Hanover Fair had once again created a space specifically for startups in the Young Tech Enterprises area in Hall 17. These represented the general trends of this year’s Hanover Fair 2018, such as Industry 4.0, Integrated Energy, Smart Supply, Predictive Maintenance, Cobots, Lightweight Construction and Digital Twin. This year’s Young Tech Enterprises once again offered a startup matchmaking between the exhibiting companies and startups. We from Ambivation were able to implement this together with the Federal Association of German startups. In addition, a total of 45 startups were presented on stage over the course of the 5 days, which was supplemented by a number of specialist lectures and panel discussions.

Startup Matchmaking at the Hanover Fair 2018
During the Startup Matchmaking from April 23rd to April 27th, representatives of established companies came into conversation with relevant startups in Hanover during a short exchange. In preparation, we compiled and analyzed them. In addition to the exhibitors in the Young Tech Enterprises area, many startups were spread across the various halls of the Hanover Fair and some were represented as sub-exhibitors at established companies. Already existing and successful collaborations between startups and companies were demonstrated there. For example, Vision Lasertechnik and Augmented Reality startup Augmenta presented their products together at the booth of Vision Lasertechnik.

Startup matchmaking talks
The range of startups in the discussions was very different, from newly founded startups from Mexico to very mature startups from Germany. Besides Germany, startups came from the Netherlands, Mexico, Poland, India (GINSEP), Israel (GISEP), France, Switzerland and the USA. Among the approximately 250 startups that participated at the Hanover Fair in 2018 were also well-known representatives such as  innoactive, Toposens, FDX and 3yourmind. After a short introduction in the conversations, a discussion about intersections and possible cooperations followed. In the course of the discussions, there were often concrete discussions about possible cooperation as an innovation partner, for example as a pilot customer or in the context of a research cooperation. Here are some visual impressions of the Hanover Fair:

We also offer startup scouting and startup matchmaking beyond the Hanover Fair and support cooperation with startups (services). We are also available to answer questions about participants and startups at the Hanover Fair.