Standing on the shoulder of giants
How corporations are partnering with startups to help them grow and overcome technical challenges.
In the startup world, few entrepreneurs have the opportunity to hit the ground running through connections and support of some of the world’s largest corporations. Many entrepreneurs get their jumpstart through an accelerator program. With intense, fast-paced and immersive activities, accelerators facilitate growth by compressing strategic business learnings into just a few months. Most importantly, accelerators are an essential avenue for startups to connect with investors and funds that allow them to scale their businesses.
However, accelerators and startups alike are starting to see the value in new types of connections, tapping the expertise of corporate partners and industry leaders. The benefits can be mutual. On one hand, startups can get invaluable assistance from experienced senior managers and corporate executives, who can share management strategies for dealing with business growth and early technical challenges. On the other, companies benefit from the experimental and flexible structure of startups and scaleups, engage their employees, stay in the know about what is disrupting the industry and align themselves with the latest ecosystem trends.
For global housing nonprofit Habitat for Humanity, who since 2017 has been running affordable housing accelerators, being able to connect donors and forward-thinking partners to startups has become one of the highlights of their program. Habitat’s ShelterTech platform, which started in 2017 with accelerators in Mexico, Kenya and India, and further expanded to regional cohorts in Southeast Asia and the Andean region of South America in 2020, has already accelerated and supported over 100 startups to develop and grow disruptive, affordable housing solutions. Close cooperation with technology and housing-focused corporations has been an essential component of ShelterTech’s strategy, both as part of the accelerators’ curriculum and in creating mentorship opportunities for participating ventures.
“We invite corporations to be our partners from the inception of the program, so they can also influence and take ownership of the startups’ growth journey,” said Lizan Kuster, Associate Director for Entrepreneurship & Innovation of Habitat’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter and ShelterTech lead. “They have taken a keen interest in offering technical mentorship and other resources to our ventures, as they share our vision of making housing markets more efficient and affordable for low-income families across the globe.”
Welcomed mentorship
For five startups based in India and Rwanda, the opportunity to learn from industry experts came last year through a unique mentorship program launched by Habitat for Humanity and Dow, a global leader in materials science expertise and collaboration. This program is a follow-up to the 2019 ShelterTech accelerators in East Africa and India. It provides an opportunity to engage Dow subject matter expertise around innovation and markets, and mentorship support to entrepreneurs where there are shared interests between Dow and the respective startups.
With an emphasis on creating shared value for business and society, Dow has been a partner of Habitat for Humanity for over 35 years and continues to support ShelterTech, among several other community-based initiatives. The company has been supporting Habitat’s Terwilliger Center since 2018, advancing Dow’s ambition to become the most innovative, customer-centric, inclusive and sustainable materials science company in the world.
The program was kickstarted with a workshop at Dow’s India Technology Centre in Mumbai, where ShelterTech startups were able to introduce their innovations and put forth their main technical challenges. In addition to a tour of Dow India’s state-of-the-art technology center, the company’s research and development leaders and management team presented Dow’s capabilities around materials and consumer solutions that could potentially support startups’ needs in overcoming some of their hurdles.
Subsequently, Habitat’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter designed a framework to assign each startup to a Dow mentor. Mentors and mentees held one-on-one learning calls, with the Terwilliger Center monitoring the pairs’ progress and guiding business and intellectual property aspects of the program.
Throughout the mentorship, each of the startups had access to Dow’s laboratories, where they could experiment and test different materials to improve technical aspects of their products.
Thriving synergies
Partnering with Dow was a much-needed opportunity for the founders who had just graduated from the ShelterTech accelerator. “We were facing issues with the corrosion of the steel sheets and peeling of the paint we use in our modular structures,” shared Sharath Nairy, Chief Technology Officer of Modulus Housing Solutions, which provides foldable structures to address housing gaps for workers in construction, oil and mining sectors (and, more recently, COVID-19 patients). “After analyzing test samples, our mentor suggested using base paint material, which provided satisfactory results. They also supported us in identifying suitable insulation materials for our structure, generating more energy and climate efficiencies. This was certainly a game changer in how we can move forward with our production.”
Indian-based startup Recycler- Saltech Design, a manufacturer of paver blocks and 3D filaments from plastic and industrial waste, wanted to develop several improvements to their product, including adjustments to the color and odor rectifiers or removers, as well as their product’s ability to reject solar heat. Through the mentorship program, and upon further testing, Dow was able to offer their own compatibilizers, as well as a different color overlay technique, which could easily be integrated into Recycler-Saltech’s plant automation processes.
Milind Chavan, Sustainability & Advocacy Lead at Dow and mentor to the Recycler-Saltech’s team, praised the synergies between the two companies. “Recycling of plastic waste is one of the key global initiatives of the Dow group. We look forward to expanding our partnership, which includes initiating a pilot plant to demonstrate the recycling of plastic sourced from bodies of water and municipal facilities.”
Later, Recycler-Saltech organized a live virtual tour of their production facility for Dow leaders and the Date With Ocean Foundation. There is are plans to establish a plant in partnership with the Date With Ocean Foundation led by lawyer and environmental activitst Afroz Shah, opening new channels for visibility and investment for the ShelterTech alumni.
At the end of the mentorship period, Dow and the startups acknowledged their mutual contributions to (and benefits from) the program. For large corporations like Dow, extending their networks to ShelterTech entrepreneurs and offering their technical expertise on materials, product development and engineering were impactful exercises, as the Dow mentors found the engagements highly energizing and valuable. For startups, the chance of learning and improving their products directly from a global industry leader allowed them to overcome technical challenges with confidence and credibility.
With the program’s success, ShelterTech has made mentorship a central component of accelerators. Soon, Dow leaders will join those from Autodesk Inc. and Hilti in mentoring the current startup cohorts in the Southeast Asia and Andean region’s accelerators — paying it forward to a new generation of innovators.
Find out more about ShelterTech.
