After a whirlwind trip to the 2024 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we’re ready to celebrate our wins. Didn’t make it? Don’t worry — we’ll catch up on everything you missed in our briefing below.
Our mission? To connect and exchange ideas with founders and VCs in MWC’s startup area 4YFN about topics that we’re passionate about (think: secure connectivity, data and AI, consumer and industrial IoT, APIs). The plan: make this happen by setting up a stand at the biggest connectivity event in the world — and bringing some of the most exciting startups we’re collaborating with to join us. We brought warehouse drone solution Aeriu, wireless connectivity deep tech startup PHYTunes, influencer-marketing-via-gaming startup inStreamly, TV-to-smarthub transformation geniuses family.cards, smart connectivity experts Uplink, global connectivity marketplace Bondio and 7Sense, who have created an electrohat for the visually impaired. Plus, together with Deutsche Telekom’s TechBoost program we invited connected business platform equipme, tech problem solvers Blinkin, AI startup go AVA and AI startup Jobgrader to join us in Barcelona.
Our five key hubraum figures on-site were Axel Menneking, Florian Steger, Tim Akgül, Constanze Kettlitz-Profe and Mario Bodemann, who introduced hubraum and what we can offer startups — such as our Wi-Fi Sensing Program; our First Mover API Program; developer relations; funding possibilities and campuses in two of Europe’s most vibrant cities, Berlin and Krakow. Attendees showed plenty of interest in the programs and opportunities for funding and partnership on offer. Axel and Florian also spread our hubraum expertise through the congress by taking part in countless investor committees, juries and on-stage talks, appearing e.g. in the University Spin-off Pitch Battle and a talk about the impact of AI on businesses: “AI at the Helm: Transforming Corporate Innovation.”
According to the data, our stand got 2700 visitors and generated 630 new leads, 36 new deals and 45 new partnerships for our startups. Out-stand-ing! But what did the startups themselves think? Blinkin founder Josef Süss said “Our MWC collaboration with Deutsche Telekom provided a fantastic platform to connect with potential clients, partners, VCs, and other startups”, while co-founder and head of marketing at PHYTunes told us it was unbelievable how many opportunities were generated while they were there. family.cards founder and CEO Teo Ortega said “The support was great and so was the organization." There was a buzzy atmosphere and we’d like to thank the startups we worked alongside for doing such an amazing job.
We were particularly happy to welcome some of Deutsche Telekom’s stakeholders to our stand, including SVP Group Strategy, Jose Perdomo Lorenzo, Philipp Schindera, SVP corporate communications, and Ulrich Klenke, SVP Brand Strategy and Marketing communications. But perhaps our proudest moment was welcoming the ‘Board Innovation Tour’. In what’s become an annual Deutsche Telekom tradition, board members and SVPs go on an innovation tour round MWC to check out the latest brainwaves from other companies. Amongst those who went on the tour was Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges, CTIO Claudia Nemat, Dominique Leroy, Board Member Europe, Armin Sumesgutner (SVP Technology Delivery International), Michael Hagspihl (SVP Global Strategic Projects & Marketing Partnerships) and Abdu Mudesir (SVP Group Technology). One piece of technology they found particularly striking was 7Sense’s incredible solution, allowing blind people to feel and “see” motion, objects, shapes, and even faces in real-time.
Over 100 people came to check out our Rapid-Fire Pitches: Startups Powered by Deutsche Telekom event — presented by the ever-charming Tim — in which our startups delivered 11 strong pitches. This was followed by lively Q&A sessions and some startups involved secured leads directly after the event.
Plus, our Developer Evangelist Mario helped deliver a showcase at Deutsche Telekom’s main stand exploring a recent hubraum project: ‘Live video production based on 5G Slicing and Quality on Demand API’. After two weeks of in-depth testing in our campus in Krakow, an international team of engineers from Sony, Nevion, T-Mobile Polska and hubraum ensured optimal 5G connectivity using the CAMARA QoD API and specific data connections.
The short version of the above? We had a fantastic time and learnt so much. We’re already counting down the days till next year’s event…
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