On Thursday, September 17, theDOCK hosted the Finals Virtual Event for its Maritime Autonomous Systems Challenge which was sponsored by thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (tkMS) and ATLAS ELEKTRONIK. The event culminated a best practice 3-months screening project in search for excelling startups addressing ATLAS’ declared needs and challenges.
More than 100 startups applied to participate and went through a screening process by theDOCK. 26 were found relevant and referred to ATLAS for further evaluation. ATLAS team of experts shortlisted the 8 finalists that demonstrated an inspiring use case out of which 4 were ultimately invited to the Bremen headquarters to discuss pilot and potential commercial relations.
This is the second project thyssenkrupp has run with theDOCK. The first time was at the beginning of the year, looking for startups in the area of industry 4.0 for thyssenkrupp’s shipyard production floor.
Idoh Ophir, Managing Director – Israel at thyssenkrupp Marine Systems commented: “Israel is considered one of the strongest countries of innovation, and as part of thyssenkrupp’s strong commitment to Israel, we are constantly looking for new partners in various areas of our business. This is the second time we conduct such a challenge with theDOCK and we are extremely happy with this cooperation which provides excellent benefit to our innovation, production and R&D teams.”.
The virtual event opened with a panel addressing strategic business motivations for big maritime-bound corporations to engage with relevant tech startups. Dr. Alexander Orellano (COO, thyssenkrupp Marine Systems), Michael Ozegowski (CEO, ATLAS ELEKTRONIK GmbH), Shlomi Fogel (Chairman, Israel Shipyards Ltd), and Elton Fong (Vice President, PSA unboXed) shared their experiences and insights on motivations for engaging with startups, and about how to internally promote open innovation while staying focused on their core businesses.
Nir Gartzman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at theDOCK, shared a few observations about the finalists startups: “We are excited with the outcome of the project with thyssenkrupp and ATLAS. This, along with past activities, reinforces our model – global maritime corporates do have an interest in innovation in the sector and they view theDOCK as the platform to scout for such. Investors are taking note of the trend and are looking to explore opportunities through theDOCK’s Navigator fund. We see interest from a few strategic players regarding our next fund and are encouraged with the deal-flow of creative startups we get exposed to ”.
The three startups that impressed thyssenkrupp and ATLAS the most were Internest, Hydromea, and SeaErra. These 3 winning startups were invited to ATLAS’ headquarters in Bremen Germany to discuss potential pilot projects and commercial relations. In addition, ATLAS has given a “Special Award” to Prisma Photonics – connecting it with its Sonar department.
ATLAS ELEKTRONIK sets its sights on underwater autonomy innovation. Arne Kraft, Head of Autonomy and Unmanned Systems within tkMS, said: “We thank theDOCK for bringing us into the world of startups and making it so tough for us to screen the few winners out of all the creative and motivated startups. They all demonstrated impressive technologies and will remain on thyssenkrupp’s watchlist. The 3 winning companies were selected due to ATLAS current roadmap priorities and areas of focus.”
Recording of the event:
The Finalists Presenting Startups at thyssenkrupp/ATLAS/theDOCK Virtual Event:
- Internest (France) – Patented local recovery system that provides a centimeter-accurate position and enables automatic recovery of marine/underwater drones aboard fixed and mobile platforms.
- Orca AI (Israel) – Collision Avoidance through AI, assisting duty officer on bridge to get an accurate view of the surrounding objects in real-time and assisting with maneuvering decisions.
- Prisma Photonics (Israel) – Hyper-scan fiber-sensing Leverage existing subsea optic cables in order to sense acoustic signals and transmit long-distance in a cyber-secured manner.
- SeaErra (Israel) – Underwater vision solution, enhancement algorithms for visibility, contrast, and colors both in images and videos acquired in scattering media such as water and haze.
- ELWAVE (France) – Underwater detection based on patented “electrical sense” technology. Emission of the electromagnetic field of sensing objects within the field, modulation analysis to conclude, range, material, and other characteristics.
- Razor Labs (Israel) – A leader in the AI industry, a trusted AI partner of MNCs companies. A robust AI professional team with a proven track record of execution of big projects with large corporates.
- Hydromea SA (Switzerland) – Modular autonomous underwater drone technology, minimization of swarm vehicle components such as hi-bandwidth communication modem, propulsion, navigation.
- ArcusTeam (Israel) – Automated cyber platform for detecting vulnerabilities on any IoT software. Analyzes each network device, looking for the vulnerabilities and the exploitation path.
Source : Sea News Feature,