Good Practice Cases for Midsize companies: EneriAir

We’ve been interviewing some of the companies that have attended our Scaleup Summits.
Today, we’re interviewing Roberto Passaquindici, CEO of EneriAir, who we met through our Open Innovation for Midsize companies program that we run with the support of the European Commission.

The goal of this program is to expose traditional mid sized companies to Open Innovation and help them to engage effectively with startups to drive innovation in their organizations.
We’ve provided a select group of mid-size companies with dedicated assessment and scouting, and then facilitated 1:1 meetings with innovative startups, in which EneriAir was included.

In this interview, Roberto shares with us his experience as a startup CEO and why he thinks his solution will disrupt the construction industry.

Can you introduce EneriAir?

Founded in December 2016, ENERI designs inflatable products as solutions in all situations where there are no solutions with traditional materials. We are offering a fast deploying structure for many uses – from advertising, sports facilities, enclosures for events, HO.RE.CA, projection screens, bubble hotels, construction and much more.
Inflatable products is a world of solutions, where you can make walls, pillars, bridge, barrier,
enclosures, work forms, with low production cost, fast production time, easy designing,
small packing size, fast setup.
We are also working on an R&D project to use a special material to build airbeam with internal pressure up to 20bars with a metal-like resistance. This new material could be used to build bridges and walls.

What kind of collaborations are you looking for?

Our company is polyhedral and can offer various range of products and solutions. We are looking for clients in any industry where we can develop a solution with our super adaptable technology.
The most interesting partnership would be with construction companies. Temporary housing solutions, given the existing 65 million refugees estimated by UNHCR, signal a demand for millions of new temporary housing, easy to install and with low environmental impact.
In the touristic sector, we’re developing the Bubble Hotels.
For home projection, we’re evaluating potential partnerships with projector constructors
like Barco or Panasonic.

What are your struggles when finding corporate partners?

We have many meetings with many different clients. Our technology is adaptable, but the true benefit can be hard to understand.
As a flexible technology provider, you have to work a lot to find long term clients and invest in business development activities. We found that face to face meetings were more efficient and helped to prove the value of our technologies.

What have you done with us and what have the results been so far?

We’ve joined the matchmaking session at the Industry Days in Brussels on January 2019 and the Scaleup Summit in Milan on March 2019. We met interesting companies such as ACCIONA, Renson, and Besix.

The best match was the Port of Antwerp. They invited us to an event with Port of Taranto where we had the opportunity to show our products to many local operators. We had great follow-ups with many of them, and we were the most awarded start-up.
Especially, the authority port of Taranto proposed us to have a key role in the development of ZES (Special Economic Zone), offering to new operators our inflatable warehouse that can be ready in a really short time. This will give a competitive advantage to the port of Taranto to be the first new ZES to be operational.
We are also working on a project for cruises passenger terminal, as well as building a hall for their upcoming startup incubator.
Finally, Port of Antwerp and Port of Rotterdam offered us to enter in their acceleration program, including an investors day.

That’s it for this interview, thank you, Roberto!

If you’d like to know more about Mind the Bridge’s matchmaking activities, check out our Scaleup Summits or our reports on Open Innovation.

By Maroane Abdallaoui
Director of Scouting – Mind the Bridge