Jan Gutknecht

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.