Automotive Ventures, an automotive technology and mobility Venture Capital firm, today announced the winners of the 2022 Shell Startup Showdown. The showdown, a joint effort between Automotive Ventures and Shell Lubricants, the world’s #1 lubricants supplier for the past 15 years, awards funds to automotive technology companies that are innovating in the areas of mobility, customer experience, net-zero emissions and new energies.
4.screen took home this year’s top honors and will be awarded $35,000. Co-founded by Fabian Beste, Simon Hecker and Christoph Mahlert, 4.screen is an API-based platform that enables local businesses and global brands to communicate in real-time with drivers.
Cinch was the competition’s runner-up and will receive $15,000. The company is a data science and low-code, no-code automation platform that brings together a company’s data from many different sources, cleans and normalizes the data, runs data models and allows users to easily and quickly use this data to drive revenue. Cinch was founded by Justin Rae, Jared Rich and Chris London.
The competition, which aims to recognize and reward automotive technology companies that best align with Shell’s goal to power progress through more and cleaner energy solutions, launched on February 15, 2022. The competition culminated on Demo Day, when the finalists presented their business ideas to executives at Shell Lubricants and Automotive Ventures.
“The inaugural Shell Startup Showdown was a great success, and we thoroughly enjoyed helping the startups evolve their pitches and build meaningful relationships within the Shell ecosystem over the course of the program,” said Steve Greenfield, founder and CEO of Automotive Ventures. “It was deeply rewarding to watch this phenomenal group of automotive technology innovators from around the globe compete for the top prize. Congratulations to the winners, and many thanks to the participants and Shell mentors for an outstanding competition.”
Automotive Ventures and Shell Lubricants jointly selected six startup finalists to meet periodically over six weeks with mentors from both Shell’s leadership team and Automotive Ventures to strengthen their business pitch before Demo Day. This preparatory program was developed to help finalists improve their story and value proposition, optimize their presentations and network with industry experts in advance of the competition.
“The Shell Startup Showdown enabled a fantastic two-way exchange on the basis of feedback from the Shell mentors, leaders and audience involved,” said Arne Steenstra, General Manager New Business Development & Digital Ventures of Shell. “I can, without doubt, share that the interaction with this great group of entrepreneurs has broadened and deepened the view on innovation in the mobility and lubricants space. I am convinced that several of the startups involved will be able to boost their growth through the newly established relationships with Shell.”
The other esteemed finalists of this year’s competition are listed below, in alphabetical order.
CarmaCare co-founders, Jonathan Palan and Devi Mohanty, launched CarmaCare to make car repair and service convenient with the company’s subscription-based vehicle health care protection plan.
EVmatch, founded by Heather Hochrein, is the developer of a sharing software platform that connects electric vehicle (EV) drivers to underutilized charging stations through a peer-to-peer public charging network.
Moment Energy is an energy storage company that provides clean, affordable and reliable energy storage by repurposing retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The company was founded by Gabriel Soares, Edward Chiang, Sumreen Rattan and Gurmesh Sidhu.
Nemodata, founded in 2020 by Gal Bechor and Tom Shachar, is powering Fleet 4.0 – the next generation of fleet operations – with data and artificial intelligence to predict fleet breakdowns, support logistics and empower freight operations.
Shell Lubricants has been the world’s leading lubricant supplier for the past 15 years with a focus on producing the world’s best lubricants, driven by impeccable quality, clean innovation, and a customer-first focus. Shell is a global energy company with around 84,000 employees across more than 70 countries. Shell is committed to advancing technologies and taking an innovative approach to help build a sustainable energy future.
Shell Startup Showdown, powered by Automotive Ventures, spotlights early-stage companies that closely align with Shell’s growth and sustainability goals across various aspects of the automotive industry – those that best improve business operations and consumer experiences in the areas of mobility, net-zero emissions and new energies.