The winners of the Paint the Future awards have already signed their letters of intent to work on sustainable business opportunities with AkzoNobel.
After having won the Paint the Future global start-ups challenge, the three awarded companies have signed their letters of intent to continue working together with AkzoNobel
on sustainable business opportunities and develop their solutions even further.
“The winning startups are joining our go-to-market acceleration program, connecting them to a global network of people and resources. Over the next six months, we’ll work together to validate their solutions for our customers and develop a joint value case,” stated Menno van der Zalm, the director of the AkzoNobel Incubator.
The solution from Israeli start-up SolCold is a sustainable self-cooling coating based on anti-Stokes that employs the sun’s energy to keep the inside temperature lower without having to use any electricity. “As a group of engineers and scientists, we know how to do R&D very well. But what we lack is the ability to mass-produce and scale our very innovative product. So, collaborating with AkzoNobel is the perfect fit,” commented the CEO Yaron Shenhav.
The Latvian start-up Aerones has developed a crawling robotic solution for the maintenance of wind turbine
that allows technicians to safely and efficiently perform inspections, cleaning and repairs at height. “We had a great experience, and as we made new friends this week it started to feel like a real family. We’re excited to work together with AkzoNobel to improve the generation of renewable energy – we would like to surprise our clients with a solution that combines our technology and AkzoNobel’s unique expertise in protective coatings,” declared Janis Putrams, CTO and co-founder of Aerones.
Finally, the Czech SprayVision offers clients the full control over the coating process with a data-driven approach that optimises the spray application by reducing the environmental impact, saving material and improving quality. “What a great week, it exceeded our expectations. We learned a lot from connecting with the other startups and getting such challenging questions from the AkzoNobel team. They’ll introduce us to completely new fields we’re not currently active in, which represent big opportunities for collaboration,” added Petr Jahn, CEO of SprayVision.