NEC Meets… Asperitas
Asperitas participated and won during the New Energy Challenge edition 2018. We ask them how they experienced the challenge.
In what ways has the New Energy Challenge (NEC) elevated your business?
The year we joined the New Energy Challenge was at a time when we participated in quite a lot of such challenges — and we happened to win many. The NEC stood out to us in particular thanks to the involvement of Shell because they produce cooling fluids that we need for our technology. We do not have the means to produce these cooling fluids ourselves, which is why it was important for us to sign up. The pitch training we received during the prep-week for the final event made a lasting impression on us. While I thought we were already pretty good at pitching our story, I learned that it could also be done entirely differently. We still use the insights of that training to this day.
What does the future hold for you, now and beyond?
Our company is growing rapidly in terms of business, which is why we are in the process of hiring people. This makes it a challenging time for our company. We are currently in the scale-up phase, which is quite demanding and takes up a lot of time. Our priority is to serve both our current clients as well as attract new ones, as we aim to grow our business even more.
How did you experience the NEC?
To us, the intensity of the week preparing for the final event with all the other participants took us a bit by surprise. We knew we wanted to go in for the full 100%, however we also had to keep running our business. We found a way to make it work and this really paid off. One thing we as a start-up can really learn from was the set-up, which was extremely professional. After winning the NEC, Shell became both an investor and a client. This relationship is still strong, and that started with winning the challenge.
What would your advice for this years’ and future participants be?
I would advise this years’ participants to carefully pay attention to the training as you might use it for many years. Also, do not focus too much on the competition aspect of the challenge because we all need each other. We all have the same goal: to contribute to the energy transition.
