On Thursday, (13^th February), four leading transportation start-ups visited WMG to learn more about Cyber Security for Automotive, Cooperative Vehicles and Intelligent Vehicles. The companies recently won a start-up competition at the New Mobility Challenge at CoMotion, Los Angeles.

The visit was initiated by the UK’s Science and Innovation Network (SIN) in the USA, who identified Warwick and the West Midlands as a priority for their visit to the UK.

Accompanying the delegation was Matthew Melling, Vice-Consul, Trade & Investment Officer from the UK’s Department for Trade and Investment (DIT), in Los Angeles and Brendan Vickers, North America lead for Innovate UK.

Professor Carsten Maple, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (North America) said; “It was a pleasure to host such innovative start-up companies and share our expertise. The group were particularly interested in the tour of our battery facility at the Energy Innovation Centre and to see the Cooperative Vehicle in action. As we refine our strategy for North America, this was a fantastic opportunity to showcase Warwick at its very best with key stakeholders from the region.”

The companies were:

• Maxwellian – a Montreal/Boston startup who are developing humidity and gas sensors for use on UAVs and other vehicles. Urban Aerial Mobility category winner at CoMotion LA
• Som-EV: Boston based who are deploying swappable batteries for ebikes. Zero Emissions Mobility category winner.
• Zeal: Southern California based company who developed an EV charging software platform. Shared and Personal Mobility category winner.
• Xtelligent: Los Angeles startup developing algorithms for traffic signal management. They were the Smart Infrastructure category and Grand Prize winner.