To identify start-ups and incubate them to eventually seek mid to long-term solutions necessary for the future mobility requirements of India and the rest of the world, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) on Friday signed an MoU with IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) and set up a technology epicentre.
The common thread of DICV and IITMIC woven into this initiative is their vision: 'technology should be created and leveraged to transform the entire ecosystem.'
Accordingly, both parties will aim to identify, mentor and provide opportunities to Indian technology start-up companies who will work towards finding futuristic solutions for the Indian mobility space in the coming years.
According to Satyakam Arya, Managing Director and CEO, DICV, connectivity, zero-emission, servitisation, and partnership are the megatrends that shape the CV industry today. He listed out three important aspects that influence this change viz enable, innovate and co-create. 'DICV’s partnership with IITMIC is a watershed moment,' he said, adding that investing in and nurturing bright Indian technology start-up companies will contribute to India’s growing economy and sustainably lead the change in commercial vehicles, logistics and mobility services.
The partnership intends to leverage DICV's commercial vehicles domain expertise and IITMIC’s proficiency in academia to strengthen the innovation and start-up ecosystem across India.
The prime focus of the joint initiative will be on all aspects like decarbonisation(electric, hydrogen), road safety (ADAS-based safety technologies), efficiency (autonomous, connected vehicles, data analytics), ecosystem creation (Truck as a Service - TaaS), and even preparing the industry for paradigm shifts in supply chain and logistics, manufacturing, product development, software-driven vehicle architectures, ESG and other allied areas.
Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, President – IIT Madras Research Park, IITMIC, said that against the global industry average of 10% success rate of start-ups, over 82% of about 275 start-ups incubated by IITMIC during the last ten years have been successful with a cumulative present valuation of INR 34,000 crore, to which the investments made was much less than INR 30 crore. As fossil-fuel-based vehicles get replaced by battery-powered or hydrogen-powered electric vehicles in the near future, innovation and the pursuit of deep-tech start-ups in the area will be a major task.
“This Daimler India Commercial Vehicles-IITMIC joint incubator would strive to become a leading incubator, where young talent flourishes; further it will become a think tank for fossil-fuel free world tomorrow,” he added.
'IITMIC and DICV will leverage our respective strengths to jointly provide mentorship and nurture start-ups by exchanging and participating in seminars, forums, events and symposiums that will help drive solutions for future mobility,' he added.
Chulanga Perera, Chief Transformation Office & Head of Strategy, DICV, said start-ups fail between two to five years of inception due to misreading the market, running out of funds, poor industrial network and lack of wider perspectives. DICV will enter the ecosystem to support the future aspiring entrepreneur and accelerate innovation by creating the ability to co-create futuristic mobility solutions with frugality, gain faster insights and access to emerging technologies, understand and create an agile and innovational culture and diversification of product portfolio, especially in the areas of servitisation. The CV maker and IITMIC will co-incubate 10 to 15 start-ups in the fields related to mobility, manufacturing, IoT and sustainability. The duo will kick off the incubator by incubating two mobility-based start-ups - Tutr Hyperloop and Ozone Motors. While the former develops and demonstrates safe, reliable hyperloop travel and provide an affordable and high-speed on-demand transportation system for passenger and goods, the latter emphasises clean, sustainable and mobility as a service.