Danijel Grabovac
Head of Siemens for Startups
Sessions (2)
Sessions featuring Danijel Grabovac at Bits & Pretzels 2026 | Founders Festival in Munich
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.
Anthropic, Siemens and SAP: Don't miss THE 3 top curated start-up collaboration programs.
The core message of the provided transcript is that startups can get far more value from corporate collaboration programs when they approach them with a specific goal, a clear understanding of the corporate’s business units and customers, and a technology-focused explanation rather than a buzzword-heavy pitch. Danijel Grabovac opened the Siemens segment by acknowledging that startup events often do not want “corporate” talk, then framed his presentation as a practical, “no bullshit” guide to working with corporates. He distinguished between venture capital, venture clienting and venture partnering: corporates may invest, buy startup solutions as first or early customers, or help startups sell jointly to the corporate’s own customer base. His central point was that knowing which of these paths a startup wants changes the entire conversation and helps the corporate route the startup to the right “happy home.” Siemens illustrated this with concrete examples. Tendet had developed GPS-like location devices for offshore safety, but Siemens identified a rail-track safety use case where workers could avoid physical barriers while receiving warnings if they moved even a centimeter too far; if they remained in a dangerous zone, the train would not receive a green signal. Grabovac used this to argue that founders should describe their technological know-how rather than default to fashionable terms like “AI agents,” because a corporate may discover a different product-market-fit path than the startup originally imagined. He then described Siemens for Startups as a funnel for finding the “needle in the haystack,” whether startups approach at events or via siemens.com/startup, and warned against sending generic investor decks when the actual goal is commercial collaboration. The Siemens section also highlighted the value of discounted or free access to enterprise-grade tools for venture-backed startups. Grabovac cited JetZero, which Siemens supported early with software licenses and attention, as an example of how aerospace startups can access tools once reserved for incumbents. He connected this to digital twin design, explaining how factories, planes and processes can be modeled before construction. The final Siemens example was Rechu, which scanned an existing factory with a backpack, returned point-cloud segmentation within two days, and enabled import into a digital twin. The speaker concluded that the stronger business case often lies not in merely selling to Siemens, but in building on Siemens technology and selling together to Siemens customers. The transcript then transitions to SAP. The host introduces Jan Gutknecht as a bridge between a large corporate and the startup world, and Gutknecht begins by connecting SAP for Startups to the idea that enterprise solutions should be ready for startups. He outlines three collaboration pillars and starts with strategic investments and acquisitions, mentioning recent investments and acquisitions such as WalkMe and Signavio before the supplied transcript cuts off. Anthropic is named in the session introduction as one of the three programs, but no substantive Anthropic segment is included in the provided transcript.