Founder of the month: SafeAD
09.12.2021
Daniela Musial-Lemberg
Founder of the month
Our founder of the month is SafeAD. Their goal is to make autonomous driving safe and reliable to change the mobility of the future.
What does your company stand for?
At the moment, the first self-driving cars are being put on the road, but only ever in small metropolitan areas, as the current technology does not yet scale to large areas. This is due to the use of highly accurate maps. Creating these and keeping them up to date requires a lot of effort.
Our mission is to bring autonomous driving to the masses. We accomplish this through our mapless approach.
Only when autonomous driving has really reached the masses will the technology be able to revolutionize mobility for the better (time savings, fewer vehicles, more efficient traffic, environmental relief).
Where and how did you come up with the bright idea to found the company?
The idea developed over a longer period of time. We compared the experience and findings from research with industry approaches and thus identified the scaling problem over a longer process.
How did the founding team come together?
We know each other from our PhD days.
Where do you see the hurdles on the way to a successful company? Where did you get support?
The automotive industry is slow and very conservative. The big car manufacturers have a lot of influence and very rarely cooperate with young startups. This is a huge hurdle. We got support from different founders in our network, the KIT Gründerschmiede and the FZI.
What was your biggest challenge in the startup phase?
Fundraising (building an appropriate network) and customer acquisition.
Has Corona had an impact on your startup/industry so far and if so, what?
Mixed: Fundraising has sped it up as everything was done online. Unfortunately, we were also only able to go to one trade show. We would have liked more, especially for customer acquisition.
What qualities do you think a founder should have?
Intrinsic motivation to overcome valleys.
Do you have any tips for other young entrepreneurs?
Look for good co-founders, network actively and use university.
What are your plans for the future? What are your next big milestones?
Prototype and next round of financing
Thank you for answering the questions!
