Janos Körtge

Industry Challenges

The session’s core message was that startup-corporate collaboration improves when startups stop treating large companies only as customers and instead identify specific industrial problems where their technology can extend a corporate portfolio. The moderator framed the discussion around the broader challenge of raising startup-corporate collaboration success from the current 50% back toward 70% or beyond. They also connected the topic to wider European scaling issues, mentioning the EU Inc or “twenty eighth Regime” effort to make cross-European market entry easier, and Germany’s work on attracting talent through a digital agency. The session then moved into reverse pitches from Siemens and Dell Technologies on the industry challenges they want startups to help solve. Danijel Grabovac, Head of Siemens for Startups, focused less on listing Siemens’ technology priorities and more on explaining how startups should understand corporate engagement models. He emphasized that “venture” means risk, and that risk is complicated inside corporates because of processes, rules, hierarchies, certifications, cybersecurity requirements, and long-established supplier relationships. Siemens’ startup function exists to mitigate that risk while making the organization more risk-friendly. Grabovac contrasted venture capital with venture clienting: instead of only investing in startups, Siemens wants to act as a pilot customer and help bring startup technologies into Siemens factories, processes, and customer environments. Grabovac then introduced “venture partnering” and “venture sales” as more distinctive opportunities. Because Siemens technologies sit across factories, trains, infrastructure, data centers, automotive, oil and gas, and other verticals, he argued that startups can build on top of Siemens technology and sell jointly to Siemens customers. He contrasted this with hyperscaler-style startup programs such as NVIDIA Inception and Microsoft for Startups, which he described as focusing mostly on giving startups early access to products in the hope they grow. Siemens, by contrast, sees startups as possible portfolio extensions. His key example was Rechu, a German startup from RWTH Aachen that walks through existing factories with a backpack to create point clouds, digitize plants, and deliver data that can be imported directly into Siemens systems. The value, he said, is faster customer ramp-up because the solution is integrated with Siemens software and appears on Siemens’ accelerator marketplace. Janos Kotge from Dell Technologies then described why Dell for Startups was created and what challenges it addresses. After founding his own company during COVID while working at Dell, he found it difficult for his startup to get in touch with Dell Technologies, which led him to push for a more dedicated startup program. Since 2024, Dell for Startups has assigned dedicated account managers to understand each startup’s employee base, six- and twelve-month goals, and target state before discussing technology. Kotge gave an anonymized example of a startup that had outsourced compute to a hyperscaler but needed German data residency for an end user; Dell sized an on-premise solution, migrated the data, and loaned the infrastructure through Dell Try and Buy, enabling the startup to win that project and later others. He summarized Dell’s startup challenges as finance, growth, flexibility, and data residency, including leasing and payment options via Dell Financial Services and a more flexible “company within a company” operating model.