BSH and Techstars launched a mentorship-driven accelerator program for startups worldwide who have disruptive digital ideas for the “Future Home”, giving them the chance to benefit from industry experts and the potential of BSH’s Home Connect ecosystem. “BSH, as a Hardware+ company, intends to become the industry leader in digital services for the connected kitchen. The success of that plan will depend crucially on assessing, developing and increasing growth opportunities of new digital business models. To do so, we need to acquire new digital capabilities that we currently don’t have yet – says Karsten Ottenberg, Chairman of the BSH Management Board -. As of the beginning of this year, this task is the job of the newly established Digital Business Unit (DBU) at BSH, with which BSH is driving forward the development of new digital business models. By investing in the DBU, the company aims to identify, test and scale potential digital business models rapidly. The DBU’s work will also include strategic investments in startups. The basic idea of the DBU: it creates an organizational environment in which digital business ideas are developed quickly with agile working methods and entrepreneurial freedom”. “A lot of smart people are working on new and creative ideas in the startup scene – adds DBU head Mario Pieper -. We’ll work with Techstars to find those smart people and offer them a chance to develop their ideas further with us. The aim is to expand startups quickly into successful full-scale companies and thus potential partners for BSH”. The home appliance manufacturer and the startup specialist firm will support and mentor ten young companies each year until 2021. Applications for the first round opened from July 23, 2018. The ten best teams will be hosted in Munich early in 2019 to gather for a three-month accelerator program. Working with mentors from BSH and Techstars, they will develop their strategies further, launch pilot projects, and sharpen their business models. “In the Future Home program, entrepreneurs will complete a process in just thirteen weeks, which usually takes over a year – says Mario Pieper – With our global brands Bosch, Siemens, Gaggenau and Neff, we’re one of the world’s most successful home appliance manufacturers, and our Home Connect technology is setting new standards in the connected kitchen. The startups will have the chance to benefit from our experience and knowledge, and an installed base of more than a million connected home appliances”. BSH sees this as a way of gaining early insight into new digital business models and technologies, and of shaping faster new solutions for the digital consumer around the connected kitchen. At the end of the program, the startups will pitch their business models in front of investors for financing and cooperation.
