18.05.2021
May 18, 2021
Marelli, a leading global automotive supplier, partners with Plug and Play to join the “Motor Valley Accelerator”, the Mobility Accelerator of the CDP National Network, born from an initiative by CDP Venture Capital Sgr in collaboration with Fondazione di Modena and UniCredit. The accelerator is managed by Plug and Play, the international innovation platform and early-stage investor, together with the technology broker CRIT - based in Modena, Italy - as a managing partner.
The “Motor Valley Accelerator” - the first Italian accelerator dedicated to the automotive sector, part of the CDP National Network which operates in the main Italian technological districts in order to support the development of competences and entrepreneurship in the innovation sector - aims at bridging together financial and industrial actors to provide the start-ups with the widest support, contributing to a fruitful exchange between local and international know-how.
As the largest Open Innovation platform in the world, Plug and Play brings together the best startups with the world’s largest corporations. The company runs both Accelerator and Post-Acceleration Programs, which are limited-time programs for major companies to collaborate and/or invest in startups as part of open innovation across a range of industries.
In particular, the “Motor Valley Accelerator” program will run a 5-month batch per year for early-stage startups based in Italy and match the corporate partners with the best international scale-ups. In this view, the best Italian startups in the mobility sector, selected by Plug and Play, will benefit from the support of the Motor Valley Accelerator partners in terms of expertise, network and investment capacity, with the final aim to develop game-changing technology solutions and implement them in their business.
For Marelli this agreement further underlines the commitment to technological innovation in the automotive sector and follows consistently the first partnership with Plug and Play, signed in 2019, through which the company joined Plug and Play’s mobility program in Silicon Valley. Extending to Italy this collaboration further allows Marelli to have a direct window on the open innovation ecosystem of one of the most important automotive hubs in the world, such as Emilia-Romagna’s Motor Valley.
“Marelli is proud to collaborate with Plug and Play, CRIT and the other partners of the Motor Valley Accelerator, within the National Accelerator Network by CDP, one of the most important players in the Italian industrial ecosystem”, stated Ermanno Ferrari, President of Marelli Europe. “We have always been committed to nurturing and promoting innovation in the automotive industry. As part of this initiative, we will be able to access a great source of valuable talents and future-oriented technologies that, combined with our know-how, will result in high-end innovative solutions for the future of mobility”.
With a specific focus on the areas of electrification, autonomous driving, sustainable technologies and motorsport, Marelli will support the process of enhancement of innovative start-ups in the automotive industry, contributing to the technological evolution of the sector in terms of innovation and sustainability. By investing in the Motor Valley Accelerator project, Marelli confirms its role as an important point of reference for powering the mobility of the future.
“It is great to have Marelli onboard, we’ve already had a fruitful relationship since 2019 and they are a perfect fit for the new automotive program in Modena” said Andrea Zorzetto, Managing Partner of Plug and Play Italy. “Since we launched in Milan, we introduced to our partners hundreds of startups, and more than 40 have implemented a pilot. We are confident that Marelli will achieve similar results and also help the local ecosystem to grow”.