Daimler Financial Services debuted a startup incubator at the 2017 Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, earlier this month, called Startup Intelligence Center (SIC).
The incubator will focus on mobility, finance, and insurance services, according to a company statement.
Entrepreneurs are able to pitch to the SIC, whereupon a jury of Daimler employees — from various areas of expertise within the business — will decide to move forward or not, the statement read. More importantly, after a successful proof of concept, there is potential for a long-term partnership with Daimler Financial Services.
Daimler Financial operates the mobility initiatives of the OEM, including operating or working in partnership with Car2Go, MyTaxi, Moovel, Flixbus, Blacklane, and AutoGravity.
“We are initially investing several million dollars for activities identified through our SIC,” Benedikt Schell, chief experience officer at Daimler Financial, said in the statement. “Through cooperation in the startup scene, we look to continue to expand on our position as a leader when it comes to digital mobility and financial services on a global scale,” he said.
The SIC website provides some interesting coloring on the types of ideas that Daimler is looking for — including financial management and aggregator platforms, lending and crowdfunding, virtual and augmented reality, and blockchain and cryptocurrency.
“It is designed to foster the co-creation between startups and ourselves, with the aim of radically innovating and fully digitizing our business and changing the future together,” according to the SIC website.
Entrepreneurs who make a successful pitch to the SIC will receive financial support for the proposed idea, as well as access to the global network of experts and customers at Daimler AG, the company said.
