”It has been a very good setup”
- Maritime Accelerator 2019 partner companies choose Enjay, Aiforsite and QiO Technologies
- Concrete plans related to the marine industry were developed during the fall and presented at the international Breaking Waves conference in November
- Preparations for the 2020 program have already begun
The 2nd Maritime Accelerator program ended on 21 November at the Helsinki Fair Center. The program was implemented by Turku Science Park Ltd. with assistance from Avanto Ventures. Accelerator partners Royal Caribbean, Meyer Turku and Rauma Marine Constructions, with selected growth companies, presented themselves at the Breaking Waves Conference.
Rauma Marine Constructions (RMC) partnered with Aiforsite, a digital project tool established in 2016. Sales and Marketing director Pyry Virrantaus was pleased with the Accelerator program. The company previously worked with the construction industry.
– We went into this with some reservations as we were not sure how the construction and shipbuilding industry would match. Very quickly, we found concrete applications because there were exactly the same challenges and solutions in both areas. It also provided specific areas where our solutions serve shipbuilding.
Mikko Leppälä, RMC Design Director, was pleased with the program results. He said the results were concrete and the pilot with Aiforsite will be launched soon.
Functional acceleration concept
Royal Caribbean chose Swedish company Enjay as their partner. The company recovers waste heat from ship kitchens. Founder Nils Lekeberg said the acceleration program is a very good concept.
”It has been a very good setup. I have enjoyed that we had this quite harsh screening process beforehand so when we turned up for this event we knew that we are sitting face-to-face with people who understand what we are doing and who can make the decision to go forward or not. That is actually quite a big difference from what we experience when we go for accelerator programs. This pays a lot more respect to our time and partners’ time. So it has been a really, really good.”
The third collaboration was between Meyer Turku and Indian company QiO Technologies. The goal is to leverage QiO’s power plant optimisation expertise in Meyer product development.
”We have found it very engaging process. Particularly the amount of time we got to spend with these partner companies and discuss what their problems were rather than just kind of speed dating or a five minutes pitch to them. Actually we spent a lot of quality time and we really started working into a solution together. That is a huge difference for us,” so Gary Chandler from QiO Technologies.
2020 preparations have already begun
Growth Advisor Sofia Tuominen coordinates the program for Turku Science Park Ltd. and said the program is achieving its goals.
– The partnerships that were created made for an interesting program. It was great that we were able to present the results at an international meeting of maritime industry stakeholders. At the event, several speakers mentioned the need to consider perspectives and ideas from outside of the industry. The results of the Maritime Accelerator are a clear signal that the program can translate words into action, Tuominen said.
She said preparations for the 2020 program have already begun. She also said that the program is constantly evolving based on feedback from the participants.
– New companies considering joining the program play an important role. Our mission is to support industry throughout the maritime industry and to accelerate growth and collaboration between leading maritime companies and smaller, sometimes non-industry growth companies. Maritime companies that are interested in developing their business have time to think about how they would like to use the Maritime Accelerator next year, Tuominen said.
In 2019, a list of more than 350 international start-ups or growth companies were compiled. Of these, 21 were interviewed and eight were invited to the fall meetings.
Below is a video from the Breaking Waves Conference in Helsinki. They show each partner and their chosen growth company’s presentation during the Maritime Accelerator.