180 applications – 8 finalists – 2 exciting corporates – and 2 winners!
Yeah! 🎉 We’re delighted, excited and grateful: On Nov. 5th, we celebrated winning the Future Logistics Challenge initiated by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Hermes Europe. With this challenge, the corporate partners were looking for new solutions to improve the ”Delivery Driver Experience“ and services for a ”Smart Delivery Vehicle“.
Supporting Hermes couriers by connecting car, software and humans
With the growth of e-commerce, shipping volumes are continuously growing and hitting record numbers. In Germany alone, Hermes will be shipping 85 million parcels during this year’s holiday season. During the peak days, up to 15,000 delivery drivers will be delivering over 2.3 million parcels daily – which is a logistical tour de force!
With the Future Logistics Challenge, Hermes and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles teamed up with betahausX to tackle the “last mile”, one of the most challenging and resource-intensive parts of the delivery process: They’re looking for innovative solutions to simplify the job of Hermes couriers through connected vehicles and integrated software solutions.
180 startups to solve the challenge with Hermes & VW Commercial Vehicles
More than 180 startups applied for Hermes’ and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles’ challenge and presented solutions for shaping the future of smarter deliveries. Out of these, 8 exciting startups from various fields were invited for the final mentoring days and jury pitch – and the two winning teams (the Munich-based startup VISCOPIC and we) were awarded the opportunity of realizing a joint pilot project and € 125,000 for testing the solution.
The real work starts today
We now look forward to working with Neohelden and VISCOPIC on developing their innovative new approaches in the areas of ‘Delivery Driver Experience’ and ‘Smart Delivery Vehicles’. They are worthy winners of the first Future Logistics Challenge.
Heinz-Jürgen Löw, Management Board Member for Sales and Marketing at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (VWCV)
To us, Future Logistics Challenge was an exciting door-opener that’ll enable us to work with two exciting corporate partners. And now, it’s about bringing the concept to the street. 🚐💨
Now, with the implementation of their ideas the winners enter the next exciting stage. The aim is to develop solutions in a fairly short period of time that Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Hermes will then trial in real-world use in a three- to six-month pilot beginning at the start of the year.
Marco Schlüter, Chief Operating Officer of Hermes Germany
We’d like to again say special thanks to the teams at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Hermes Europe and betahausX for their continuous support and trust they put in us, and to all the other startups and founders for insightful discussions!
