Shell names German company EcoG ‘Best Scale-up’ in New Energy Challenge 2019
German company EcoG has been named ‘Best Scale-up’ in the fourth edition of the New Energy Challenge, winning the opportunity to further develop a pilot together with Shell’s Retail business, before ultimately launching it at a Shell retail site.
“EcoG was named ‘Best Scale-up’ for the operating system it has developed for EV charging stations. Their operating system offers a greatly improved user experience and promises to be for charging stations, what Android is for smartphones. These are the kinds of solutions that will help meet the growing demand for transport in a lower carbon world. At Shell we are very ambitious about adopting new technologies, so we welcome their creativity and entrepreneurship. I look forward to working together with EcoG,” said Hilmar van den Dool, General Manager Shell Retail Benelux & France.
By winning, we get the opportunity to develop a pilot with Shell, which will really help us accelerate our business
EcoG was chosen by an expert jury from a field of more than 200 start-ups and scale-ups from across Europe and Israel who are developing advanced technologies and disruptive solutions that could be vital to meeting future energy needs.
“We learned so much over the last days, it was really valuable to discuss our ideas and our business with the other participants, Rockstart and the experts from Shellt. By winning, we get the opportunity to develop a pilot with Shell, which will really help us accelerate our business. This is really huge for us, and we can’t wait to get started!” said Joerg Heuer, founder and CEO of EcoG.
Increasing impact
This year the organisers of the New Energy Challenge – Shell, Rockstart, YES!Delft and Get in the Ring – sought to increase the competition’s impact by differentiating between start-ups and scale-ups and offering separate tracks scaled to their different levels of maturity.
NanoSUN from the United Kingdom was named this year’s ‘Best Start-up’ for its low-cost hydrogen refueler it has developed. Their technology has the potential to eliminate 60% to 80% of the cost of conventional hydrogen refuelling, enabling rapid expansion of hydrogen refuelling stations. The company receives €100,000 towards a proof of concept within the Shell GameChanger programme.
From over 200 applications, twenty-seven companies were initially short-listed for the competition, based on their proposals. After a round of deep dive interviews and assessments that was reduced to twelve finalists who were invited to the Netherlands for a week of intensive coaching to help shape and strengthen their commercial propositions before a final pitch to the jury of experts.
The New Energy Challenge is organized by Shell in partnership with Rockstart and Yes!Delft, the two leading accelerator programs in the Netherlands. Its goal is to bring together the best and the brightest minds working on the energy transition and accelerate the transition to a lower carbon future.
Scale-up jury:
- Neelie Kroes (Former Special Envoy for start-ups in the Netherlands, Former Vice-President of the European Commission)
- Hilmar van den Dool (General Manager Shell Retail Benelux and France)
- Geert van de Wouw (Vice President Shell Ventures)
- Hugo Buis (General Manager Customer Integration at Shell)
- Freerk Bisschop (Director Energy at Rockstart)
