BP and RocketSpace test advanced mobility solutions with global start-ups
London and San Francisco – 9 October 2018 – BP and RocketSpace, founders of the Mobility Tech Innovation Collaborative, are shaping the future movement of people, goods, and services in collaboration with global mobility and smart transportation industry leaders.
Today, they are announcing the four start-ups from Israel, U.K. and U.S. selected to test and explore partnerships with Avis Budget Group, IBM and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi during the Mobility Tech Innovation Collaborative’s 12-week program.
Technological advances in electrification, autonomous driving and connected cars are among the many emerging drivers transforming travel for consumers and businesses.
The program’s incoming cohort of start-ups represent a technologically diverse group of advanced mobility technologies from advanced parking solutions to artificial intelligence-driven fleet management, electric vehicle fleet planning and simulated reality. There will be multiple real-world proof-of-concept (PoC) opportunities to test these products with corporates that could lead to expanded pilots, future partnerships or investments. BP recently invested $5 million in FreeWire, manufacturer of mobile rapid charging systems for electric vehicles, following its participation in the Mobility Tech Innovation Collaborative.
After reviewing hundreds of start-ups from around the world, the start-ups selected to pursue PoCs with the industry leaders are:
- Immense Simulations (Milton Keynes, U.K.) – Immense is a software company enabling intelligent mobility. Its software platform revolutionises how transport stakeholders use simulation to make fast informed decisions associated with the movement of people and goods around the transport system.
- Parkofon (Alexandria VA, U.S.) – Parkofon is the pioneering automated parking payment and guidance platform based on innovative GPS-based technology and Big Data analytics.
- Spark (Cambridge, U.K.) – Spark’s AI-based journey prediction software uses machine learning to help electric vehicles go further between charges using live data from the vehicle, driver and atmospherics. These more accurate predictions help overcome range anxiety and therefore drive greater adoption of electric vehicles by both businesses and consumers.
- Fleetonomy (Tel Aviv, Israel) – Fleetonomy offers artificial intelligence-based solutions to enable fleet owners, OEMs and mobility service providers to maximize their fleets by enhancing efficiency, generating more insights from their data, and creating new revenue streams by operating new smart mobility services.
“I see RocketSpace as a win-win for everyone involved. For start-ups, it provides the opportunity to work with BP to test their products and services in our environment. For BP, we get to experiment with new products and services that could help us transform mobility and ensure we are positioned to meet the needs of customers now and into the future,” said Roy Williamson, vice president of BP’s advanced mobility.
“This PoC helps us demonstrate the value of our Simulation-as-a-Service and enables technical due diligence of our capabilities,” said Robin North, CEO, Immense Simulations. “It also gives us a chance to develop a longer term strategic partnership with BP whilst understanding their business drivers, requirements and key success factors.”
New, tested solutions will be presented at a Demo Day in December. Start-ups participating the Mobility Tech Innovation Collaborative are not required to give up equity. Visit here for more information and to apply for the next cohort: https://www.rocketspace.com/accelerators/mobility-tech-innovation-collaborative.
About BP
BP is a global producer of oil and gas with operations in 70 countries. BP has a larger economic footprint in the U.S. than in any other nation, and it has invested more than $100 billion here since 2005. BP employs about 14,000 people across the U.S. and supports more than 106,000 additional jobs through all its business activities. For more information on BP in America, visit www.bp.com/us.
SOURCE: BP