We were greatly honored on 8 June when we hosted 9 Hungarian startups at our new headquarters on Szervita Square, so they could be introduced to Martin Olczyk, the accelerator manager of Techstars Smart Mobility of Turin. The teams by name were Rollin, BeamLive, Lockinvisible, Drone Detection, Dolphio, Munch, Compocity and Smapp Lab, and they are not exclusively involved in urban mobility, which was not a problem for Martin who has covered a very broad range with his previous investments. In any case, the startups engaged in environmental protection and even military technologyproved that a global incubator such as TechStars should pay attention to Budapest. Article by Júlia Sohajda, cofounder of Vespucci Partners.

It was no coincidence that we began our event with Liz Madaras, the cofounder of Poliloop, since this startup that has already enjoyed international success is already a member of the TechStars family. Vespucci Partners brought the companies together last year, and as the saying goes: the rest is history.  Liz shared her experiences and was saying that TechStars is absolutely worth it! As she explained, she has her relationship with TechStars to thank for becoming a businesswoman as well as a researcher. All of this is proven by her recent decoration by the Hungarian Association of Executives.

“There is no Hungarian TechStars office yet”

After this our main guest Martin Olczyk, the accelerator manager of Techstars Smart Mobility of Turin took the microphone. In his introduction he spoke about how much he loves Budapest, and how sorry he is that there is no TechStars office yet in the Hungarian capital. However, at Vespucci Partners we are working on changing this as soon as possible. 

From his personal introduction we learned that he has tried his hand at several startup industries, which was rather apparent from the questions he asked during the pitches. He separately highlighted his failures and how much could be learned from them, and that startups also have to experience what it is like when they ‘burn through cash’ something from which the entire ecosystem can profit however. After this he described the TechStars family itself and the advantages as well as the ‘burdens’ of joining, the first step of which is the three-week long mentor madness, where the title of the program reflects its intensity. He illustrated the stretching of work tolerance with the saying ‘do more faster’. 

Considering its volume TechStars is the largest incubation network in the world, they connect 18 thousand investors with over 500 companies on an annual level – said Martin Olczyk. As a result 1,600 startups have shared 18.2 billion dollars since 2019, but networking and passing on knowledge is just as important as money. The gigantic numbers listed by Martin are understandable in the light of the fact that 84% of the projects involved in acceleration are active or have been bought out, while otherwise only 1 out of 10 startups reach maturity – he underlined. (One out of ten startups becomes truly successful, but what happens with the others? In my writing titled ‘Early signs of failure with the eyes of an investor’ I explored this subject.)

The three things necessary for a successful startup: team, team, team 

According to Martin, when a startup is audited they look at four things in the first round: 1. The team, 2. The team, 3. The team and after these: 4. If the target market is sufficiently large. In 5^th place is traction and the idea itself is in the very last spot. He illustrated with his own example why they structure their system in this way. An application was developed for hotels in the spring of 2020 when tourism went bust because of Covid, but they did not despair, they rather pivoted, switched to another product, and the new product has produced 3,000% growth since that time.

In his closing comments he asked the teams to be open-minded, since a pivot may be necessary any time.

Hungarian startups are ready, which shows the improving situation of the entire ecosystem

During the pitches we met a multitude of products, ideas and startups, some are just beginning now and some are companies operating with millions of dollars of turnover annually. In their presentations they introduced their product rather than their team, but there were some who quickly reacted and pivoted, and there were some who needed to be redirected by Martin to switch the emphasis a bit in the spirit of the above mentioned: team, team, team. To the great pride of the entire Hungarian ecosystem, the startups managed to develop a professional discourse with Martin that would be admirable anywhere in the world. We are very hopeful that at least one of them will manage to repeat the success of Poliloop achieved with the help of Vespucci Partners, and join the TechStars family.

The teams:

Rollin would target the great e-roller renters with its battery charging system.

BeamLive has developed a lightning fast, IoT based push communication platform for mobiles, which operates considerably faster than their competitors.

Lockinvisible is a revolutionary bicycle lock that works by pulling out the saddle support rod.

Drone Detection, as its name suggests, is engaged in the detection and if necessary the neutralization of drones with a revolutionary technology. It is not hard to guess that in their case military applications are also possible.

Dolphio Technologies is a development team, which presented a system that monitors PET-bottles and other contaminants in rivers with an intelligent camera system, assisting in cleaning rivers.

Munch helps reduce food waste with its system, at the end of the day restaurants can sell their leftover food at a fraction price. 

Compocity brings composting into urban households with its eco-robot and smart system.

The smart system of Smapp Lab assists farmers who can get a real-time image of the movements of pests with it.