At two international start-up events, NRW.INVEST campaigned for the state in order to connect North Rhine-Westphalian industry with innovative business ideas from foreign start-ups.
At the Hungarian Tech Day in Düsseldorf, organized by Vodafone and the Hungarian Consul General with the support of NRW.INVEST, ten Hungarian start-ups presented their ideas on the topics Smart City and Mobility to an expert jury. A new kind of car-sharing platform from the company BeeRides, with which car owners can rent out their vehicles to tourists at Dortmund Airport during their vacation, proved particularly convincing. As the winner of the pitch, BeeRides received one year of free power supply from Innogy.
In Hungary, the start-up culture is just beginning to gain ground. With the invitation to the pitch in Düsseldorf, the organizers wanted to give aspiring companies the opportunity to implement their projects in NRW and to achieve international recognition. In addition, the event marked the launch of a digital alliance between Düsseldorf and Budapest with the aim of promoting smart city projects.
Compared to Hungary, the Israeli start-up scene is a step further and can already claim several international successes. This year NRW.INVEST was a strategic partner of Axis Tel Aviv, a conference that brings together leading Israeli start-ups, international investors and key actors in the start-up ecosystem. The focus was on German-Israeli synergy potential in digital technologies along the entire value-added chain. Lior Sethon from the Israeli start-up Mobileye, which successfully conquered the German and European markets with its branch office in Düsseldorf, spoke about possible cooperation ventures between North Rhine-Westphalian industry and Israeli start-ups.
