Startup Challenge – Get to know Startups

Startup Challenge – Get to know Startups

The last article in our series “Get to know Startups” was about Innovation Challenges. A similar topic, but with a small difference, are the start-up challenges we would like to deal with today. Ambivation explains about this good opportunity to get to know startups, about the advantages of a Startup Challenge and for whom it is relevant. We also present some interesting case studies of startup challenges to illustrate them better.

What is a Startup Challenge?

A Startup Challenge is similar to an Innovation Challenge in many ways. Here too, the aim of the competition is to discover innovative solutions. The organizers of a Startup Challenge can be research institutions, universities, SMEs or corporations. When companies announce such a Challenge, it usually serves to find a tailor-made solution for an individual problem more quickly, while universities often want to promote young founders and innovation in general. The difference to the Innovation Challenge is that the Startup Challenge is aimed exclusively at start-ups. One of the application criteria is usually that the participating company must not be older than ten years. Some companies that offer such a challenge also refer to it as a “Corporate Challenge” or “Corporate Startup Challenge,” which they also use to target startups.

What is the advantage of a Startup Challenge?

If there are problems in a company that lie outside the core business, it can be difficult and expensive to solve them in-house. In this case it can make sense to cooperate with an external partner who is specialized in this area. This is where startups come into play. With their innovative technologies and ideas, they can often offer suitable solutions that can be implemented cost-effectively. However, finding the right startup can be quite costly, especially as a newcomer to the startup market. A Startup Challenge offers the advantage that the concrete tender already pre-selects, and not the entire, broad field of the start-up scene must be screened. Even if you only focus on the startup market of your own industry, the range of startups can be numerous.

Here you get an overview of current startup and innovation challenges. If you know of other challenges, or if you are organizing a challenge yourself, you can add it to the table using our form. All Startup Challenges already created can be found on here.

How does a Startup Challenge work?

In a Startup Challenge, the application is usually made through short pitches in which startups present their ideas. The prize often consists of a cooperation with the company that advertises the challenge. Since they are limited in time, the cooperation can first be tested here. It is often kept within the same framework as a pilot project. If the cooperation is successful, this can be a chance for startups to win the company as a long-term cooperation partner. However, there is also the possibility of obtaining financing. This can mean an upswing in their careers, especially for start-ups that are still in the very early stages and receive support from this capital.

Examples for Startup Challenges

To better illustrate the principle of the Startup Challenge, we present a few case studies here. One example that Ambivation has already reported on is the Siemens Startup Challenge, which took place as part of this year’s RuhrSUMMIT. It was announced for the areas of Smart Manufacturing Imaging Processing, Digital Info Management and Asset Localization in Augmented Reality. Each of these three individual challenges describes a concrete problem for which a solution is being sought. The prize for which the start-ups compete with their innovative ideas is a pilot project with Siemens Energy.

A state-funded start-up challenge is the Startup Challenge of the Bavarian universities. It is organized by “Hochsprung”, the network of start-up consulting and start-up support at Bavarian universities and supported by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and Art. The alliance of Bavarian universities includes the University of Bayreuth, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the University of Würzburg. In a total of six rounds, student start-up teams of three to five people can playfully develop their own start-up and rehearse the market launch. The winning teams will receive prizes worth a total of €6000.

The Startup Challenge of the Swiss mobile communications company Swisscom has been announced annually since 2013. Since then, more than 1140 startups have already applied, among others from the areas of AI, IoT, Robotics, Cloudservices, FinTech and Blockchain. The goal of this year’s challenge is to create innovation in the mobile sector with the help of 5G. For the first time in 2020, not only start-ups from Switzerland but from all over the world were allowed to apply. From the number of applicants, ten favorites are selected, which are then evaluated in a public voting and have to pitch in front of a jury, which finally selects five winners.

A Startup Challenge can therefore offer advantages both for the participants and for the companies organizing it. Through the concrete communication of the problem to be solved, as well as the corresponding application criteria, the choice of applicants is already selected. Thus a suitable cooperation partner can be found more quickly. If you are hosting a Startup Challenge yourself, or would like to share exciting examples, we would be happy to have you enter them in our form. If you are looking for a partner to support your Startup Challenge – reach out to us.