100 days of STARTUP AUTOBAHN
100 days of STARTUP AUTOBAHN holoride works in Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and EvoBus
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During the past 100 days, we carried out three technical feasibility studies as part of the STARTUP AUTOBAHN innovation program together with premium brands Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and the Daimler subsidiary EvoBus – one of the leading bus manufacturers worldwide.
Hereby, we have shown that the holoride software for motion-synchronized real-time generation of Extended Reality, i.e. VR content works perfectly with the brand partners’ vehicle data. This result, in addition to our proven compatibility with Audi vehicles, is an important milestone for us and strengthens our open platform approach.
With today's Expo Day, we successfully conclude the 6th edition of the program as one of only 39 internationally selected startups. And we even won an award! More on that later on …
STARTUP AUTOBAHN is an innovation platform supported by the renowned Silicon Valley Accelerator Plug and Play. It sees its role as an interface between leading international companies and innovative tech startups.
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A new media category for passengers
Our software offers a new media category: “Elastic Content”. Targeted for in-vehicle use, the content adapts to the driving time, movement, and environment of the vehicle for a highly-immersive experience, and significantly reduces motion sickness. The vehicle data becomes the basis for a new entertainment format. For the first time, previously unused transit time of passengers can be monetized for all participating partners – so all car manufacturers and content producers equally benefit from the technology. Our aim is to change in-vehicle entertainment forever. The positive feasibility study with EvoBus proves even more great potential for the bus travel market.
Our core technology, the holoride software development kit, translates the vehicle data so that content producers with existing game engines can easily create offers for passengers.
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Foundation blocks successfully laid for further cooperation
Nils, our CEO and co-founder, concludes: "We are grateful for the many opportunities and contacts that this year's STARTUP AUTOBAHN program has offered us. This gave us a great “Fast Track” in the last few weeks to successfully test our technology with other vehicle manufacturers, strengthen our open platform approach, and lay the foundation for further cooperation.”
"holoride opens up a new dimension in car entertainment. In recent weeks, the team has impressively demonstrated what its technology can do - and we are convinced of holoride's platform approach. We are looking forward to the next steps together," sums up Dr. Christian Knörle, Project Manager Strategy and Innovation, Porsche AG.
Our joint project with Daimler and Porsche was one of only three (out of 69!) projects in the program to receive the Global Innovation Award at the Expo Day. The Investor and Accelerator Plug and Play from Silicon Valley gives this award to projects of the Startup Autobahn partners, which prove how competencies can be bundled to successfully master challenges together.
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The Daimler experts also draw a positive conclusion from the cooperation of the past weeks: "Within the framework of the STARTUP AUTOBAHN platform, we were able to integrate our high-precision vehicle localization of the MBUX Augmented Reality into the holoride software. The result is a VR system that can be fully integrated into a series production vehicle with practically no modifications. Now we can quickly take the next steps for a cooperation. An ideal scenario for us as initiators of STARTUP AUTOBAHN", says Dr. Frank Ruff, Head of the research division PIONEERING NeXt.
About holoride
German startup holoride creates an entirely new media category for passengers by connecting Extended Reality (XR) content with data points from the vehicle in real time. These data points include physical feedback, like acceleration and steering, traffic data, as well as travel route and time. holoride technology provides a new type of immersion into any kind of VR content, creating a breathtaking, immersive experience, and significantly reducing motion sickness. The tech startup was founded at the end of 2018 in Munich, Germany by Nils Wollny, Marcus Kuehne, Daniel Profendiner, and Audi, who holds a minority stake in the startup. It was hailed “Best of CES” four times (Las Vegas, January 2019), recognized as one of the 100 Best Inventions of 2019 by TIME Magazine and is part of the global innovation platform “STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play.” In 2021, holoride went on to win the prestigious SXSW Pitch and was also named Best in Show.