DL E&C is working on securing new growth engines within startups by conducting open innovation with N15 PARTNERS since last year. DL E&C open innovation this year has expanded its scale to the company level, recruiting startups in the following four areas.
- Addressing needs in construction sites
- Digital transformation technology for construction projects
- Eco-friendly decarbonization businesses
- New business models
As if to correspond to the scale-up, startups in only the construction field were recruited enough to reach the final competition rate of 26:1. Such enthusiastic response from the startups was far beyond expectations. 187 startups in total applied to participate in the program. External experts and working-level staff from DL E&C selected the startups that are considered to have the potential for practical collaboration with the businesses in DL E&C. The first stage of the examination was document screening, which sorted out 31 startups, and the final screening was conducted face-to-face, which left the final seven companies as follows:
△WATT (Smart factory solution utilizing AR glasses)
△VESTELLALAB (Indoor parking navigation AI service)
△EVAR (Smart electric vehicle charging solution)
△HyTK energy (Ammonia power pack)
△OASIS BUSINESS (Commercial property valuation solution)
△ Metsakuur Company (Face recognition AI solution)
△Corners (Black box AI vision linkage safety management solution)
The seven selected startups discussed PoC progress in a conference held with field work departments of DL E&C and operating personnel of N15 PARTNERS. The startups discovered additional collaboration chances with DL E&C within the conference. During the three-month-long Proof of Concept (PoC), a collaboration between DL E&C and the startups was conducted in practice. Furthermore, the possibility of collaboration from a long-term perspective has been verified by the personnel in the fieldwork departments of DL E&C.
On December 15, “DL E&C Open Innovation Demo Day” was held at the lounge in the working space of N15 PARTNERS. The event was planned to share the accomplishment of the DL E&C open innovation program and provide startups with opportunities for investment attraction by inviting external VCs to the site. In addition to this year’s program, N15 PARTNERS had associated collaboration between five promising startups and DL E&C in 2021. Besides the program related to the construction field, N15 PARTNERS is establishing open innovation platforms in various other areas. Keen attention and support are expected.
