Baloise launches its mobility accelerator

As part of its Simply Safe strategic phase, Baloise has been making huge efforts since 2017 to boost its innovative strength, especially in the Home and Mobility ecosystems. To this end, it uses a highly structured innovation process that provides routes to five possible cooperation models: incubation, acquisition, investment, cooperation and partnership. All innovation initiatives in the past few years have been based on these principles. 

Together with the strategic innovation consultancy Spark Works and its spin-off Sparkademy, Baloise is issuing a call for participation in a 10-week Baloise Mobility Accelerator programme tailored to early-stage start-ups. Sparkademy offers a structured learning programme based on innovation principles that guide start-ups through problem-solving processes in a structured manner. 

Through the program, selected teams will work on their business challenges as they learn about conducting user discovery and finding needs through stakeholder mapping, interviews and insight generation; going through a problem-solving stage and evaluation of their idea based on personas and customer journeys; re-building their prototype, experiment and test; and enhancing their team dynamics and leadership. Teams will receive feedback and mentoring from mobility and innovation experts as well as from experienced professionals, peers, investors and your own customers. The practical learning approach, weekly coaching hours and peer-to-peer feedback allow you to continuously evaluate your teams’ progress.

Who can participate
Eligible to apply are early- or pre-seed stage startups that have gained traction in the market or validated their business idea through first customer feedback and market research, and are ready to take the next step. Sought for are startups with solutions focusing on ‘mobility as a service’, ‘shared economy services’, B2B[2C] services for vehicle fleets or other services centred around mobility. 

Out of scope for this program are solutions in the field of Cargo, logistics, delivery and alike, Ventures that (exclusively) focus on air travel, as well as futuristic, heavy R&D opportunities and hardware-driven solutions. New insurance and banking solutions are also out of the focus of the initiative. 

The program is fully funded by Baloise and will be held online. Ideally, a minimum of two team members take part, but it is also suitable for individual founders. The have to attend at least 50% (part-time) during the 10 weeks; this can be filled in according to own schedule. The program will culminate in a pitch day held physically – if covid and travel restriction will allow.

“Programmes like this one are geared towards concrete, tangible results and have the added benefit of fostering a culture of innovation,” says Patrick Wirth, Head of the Mobility ecosystem. “Our aim with this call for participation in Mobility@Baloise is to attract start-ups from the European mobility start-up scene – especially those in the pre-seed or seed phase – to our Baloise ecosystem.”

(Press release/RAN)