At The Factory, we make it our mission to connect the right startups and scale-ups with corporates. On September 6th, 2019, EYnovation organized a Launchpad Meetup for WDP, Benelux market leader in warehouses & logistics. WDP, awarded the “Onderneming van het Jaar” award in 2017, worked with The Factory to futureproof their vast portfolio of warehouses. Thanks to our EYnovation program, we were able to share this challenge with our community of startups & scale-ups. We screened and pre-selected 12 of them for a pitching day at WDP’s headquarters on September 6th, 2019.
A Launchpad Meetup is a win-win for every participant. Startup companies are invited to pitch their solution to a corporate’s C-level. On the one hand, it is an opportunity for young companies to get exposure to potential clients and investors. On the other hand, the corporate company gets a holistic scan of Benelux’s finest startups & scale-ups. These promising companies could have the technology, knowledge and team that match the corporate company’s innovation strategy.
Joost Uwents, CEO of WDP, states: “Today, the entire WDP staff reflects on how to innovate and digitize our company. We think about how we can improve efficiency, but also how we can improve our customer service and future offering.” Johnny Waterschoot, Senior Manager and Innovation Enabler at The Factory, adds: “I’m very pleased to see that both the WDP management and their employees are present here today to listen to the pitches and also reflect on actual steps they can take to start collaborating with these startups & scale-ups.”
And the winner is…
The 12 startups mainly focused on solutions in Big Data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Drones & Robotics, Virtual and Augmented Reality. At the end of the pitching sessions, both the Audience Award and WDP Management Award were granted to Scanbie. Scanbie scans buildings using photogrammetry via drone and laser scanning. They visualize the entire building in both VR and AR. “You can look at the result with virtual glasses, which means you have every detail of an entire building in your pocket, 24/7”, An Meersman, Founder of Scanbie, explains.
Apart from the winner, WDP will have follow-up conversations about possible partnerships with other relevant startups. Jürgen Ingels, Board Member of WDP, concludes: “It’s encouraging to witness the enthusiasm of the startups when they pitch their solutions and at the same time, see a large company like WDP taking advantage of this opportunity to invite innovative companies into their offices to look for collaborations.”
We would like to thank our client WDP for the pleasant collaboration and hope this is only the beginning of a wonderful innovation journey! We also thank all the startups who applied and eventually pitched in the Launchpad Meetup: Scanbie, Agrex.ai , Around Media, Avular, Cumul.io, OpenMotics, Pipple, Pozyx, Sentigrates, Shayp, and Yazzoom.
Contact us
Interested in organizing a Launchpad Meetup for your company? Contact Johnny Waterschoot for more information or send us a message via [email protected]
The Factory’s core mission is to bring together startups, scale-ups, corporate companies, and EY expertise. Dig into our our event agenda here.