The Australian Chamber of Commerce selected betahausX to help Australian companies explore, understand and potentially enter the European market with their products and services. This cooperation builds on a tradition of strong commercial ties enjoyed by Australia and Germany, amounting to about 65bn euro in investment annually.

Owing to an energetic entrepreneurship scene and the existence of an agile venture capital infrastructure around it, Berlin was selected as the Landing Pad for Australian companies in Europe. The city is part of Austrade’s five-city program together with San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore and Tel Aviv.

Opting for Berlin as the European hub was based on its many strengths and advantages, including but not limited to the purely international character of the city, the virtually non-existent language barrier in spoken English, low cost of living, as well as the fact that Berlin hosts many international corporations with development facilities and offices like those of Siemens, Daimler, BASF, SAP, Allianz and many more.

The companies in the Austrade program needed a place from where they can conduct their day to day business while immersing themselves in the business ecosystem. They also needed logistical support and a well-planned roadmap based on their needs in understanding the particularities of the market in Europe and meeting with the right people in the right industries.

betahaus opened the doors to its coworking business ecosystem for the 35 companies whose founders and leaders stayed for an immersive 90-day residency. Meanwhile, betahausX took the care to build a robust program and provide support for every turn on the journey.  

It has been an engaging experience to work with the people behind companies who have viable products and services and are ready to scale up in fields ranging from 3D printing to medical solutions to engineering to cloud applications. 

The Landing Pad program was fitted to benefit 10 companies per batch, which enabled betahausX to dedicate the adequate amount of time and focus to each one. The participants were facilitated into their first business meetings with companies and were matched with experts in various fields. Based on this experience, many participants were able to develop a clearer direction regarding market entry and facing competition. 

betahausX carefully developed a rich program of networking events, workshops and company visits. The entrepreneurs were matched with experts who guided them towards understanding the business landscape for their respective field, while providing insights that could help the companies adapt their product, market it or present it in a better way, define the targeted audience of potential purchasers or users and so on.

When the pandemic effectuated closures and severe travel restrictions, the program virtualized its 90-day residency by creating a Virtual AI Bootcamp. Some of the core advantages of the program - being part of a business ecosystem and making connections - were moved online by betahausX doing more of the same in Berlin, but via online meetings. 

The sixth year of the Austrade Berlin landing pad included 19 AI companies from Australia who attended networking sessions, one to one meetings, industry and market roundtables, as well as keynote presentations. By leveraging the advantages of the Virtual AI Bootcamp, four Australian companies partnered with companies from the Berlin business ecosystem while many more had acquired valuable insights towards developing their business in the time ahead. 

In this Virtual AI Bootcamp betahausX provided 19 AI startups and 43 individuals an intensive acclimatization roadmap for market entry, market discovery and readily deployable strategies for the UK and Germany. The teams had the opportunity to attend roundtable discussions,  peer and expert interaction events, one-to-one meetings and presentations with relevant experts and groups representing our partners at SAP, GTAI, Deutsche Bahn, Bayer, Körber Digital, Airbus, PWC UK and KI verband.

A vast and dynamic market, Europe provides an opportunity for emerging foreign companies, however, they need to take on the challenge of understanding the field and coming to the right people in the right companies. 

The collaboration between Austrade and betahausX ensured that the Australian companies are provided with the best logistical support and networking so that they can focus on doing business and never feel “lost” in a city of four million people. 

Some of the companies in the program were able to rely on the Landing Pad to discover prospects and professional networks which they can leverage to fine-tune their model in the time ahead. 

Overall, the interaction between the Australian companies and the business ecosystem based in Berlin added value to Austrade’s program designed to give the participating companies a head start on their international venture.