April 18th, 2024
Noveastern (trademark of Novares) created Novares Venture Capital in 2018, its corporate venture arm dedicated to investing in startups and innovative companies and started collaborating with a number of partners. The Novares Venture Day (NVD) 2024 in Shanghai is the fifth edition of the Group but the first in China, in partnership with XNode.
In line with the Group’ strategy to be leader in the EV Development in China, Novares organized its event on April 17 in Shanghai, with the support of XNode, a global entrepreneurship and innovation platform, created in 2015, helping companies continually develop their innovation practices and achieve organizational innovation growth.
As a first collaboration with XNode and with the participation of start-ups, University of CEIBS, Technical Experts and Government Representatives, Novares continues to develop its strategy on the local market, expands its business and strengthens its activity already present through the five plants implemented since 1997.
Kicking off at 2pm (Shanghai local time), Philippe VAYSSETTES, Noveastern Business Unit China President and Jean-Luc BLANCOU, Novares Chief Business Development Officer, introduced the event. The agenda included a roundtable discussion on the thematic “the Innovation strategy through startup collaboration, how to succeed?”. With the participation of Lei NIU, VP & Head of Innovation XNode, Sophia JIN, General Manager Shanghai Zhangjiang Incubator Management Co., LTD, Jean-François SURLÈVE, Director of Global Product Management Fluid & Hydrogen, Norma Group and, for Novares, Hugo MESTRE, Group Innovation Director.
In accordance with its strategy of developing its innovation ecosystem with new partners, this year the Group gave the opportunity to height startups to pitch their ideas and get a chance at partnering with Novares to develop a future collaboration.
After the start-up pitches sessions, the jury, composed of Prof. Shameen PRASHANTHAM, CEIBS University, M. Yimin CAI, Director of Advanced Materials Division, NICE, and Philippe VAYSSETTES & Luc DORNIER, Vice-President Product Development of Novares, selected the winners: ZENCE won the Novares Prize and PLAS ELEMENT the Jury Prize. These two new partners will start to exchange with Novares Teams to further co-develop pragmatic innovations.
Novares Venture Day is an annual event that highlights Novares’ commitment to innovation. The company regularly invests in innovative start-ups and businesses via Novares Venture Capital that allows to bring new ideas. Its expertise in the production of advanced automotive solutions with technical plastic injection, integrating its partnership innovative development, aims to create and produce pragmatic solutions for greener, lighter, and connected cars with intelligent and intuitive interfaces for all passengers.
Speaking about the ceremony, Novares CEO Pierre BOULET said: “The event is a chance to glimpse some of the most exciting innovations at the very start. Some previous winners have become partners of Novares and seen their innovations transformed into useful new technologies for today’s cars. Novares invests in innovation and partnering star-tups companies helps Novares to develop cutting-edge technologies for the cars of tomorrow.”
ABOUT NOVARES:
Based in France, Novares is a global supplier of plastic solutions that designs and manufactures complex components and systems that serve the future of the automotive industry.
The company creates and produces advanced automotive solutions with technical plastic injection for greener, lighter and connected cars with intelligent and intuitive interfaces for all passengers.
Novares co-develops and provides engineering and manufacturing expertise to virtually every OEM in the world and many Tier 1 companies in the automotive market.
Novares, which is behind the construction of one in three vehicles in the world, achieved a turnover of 1.2 billion euros in 2023, thanks to its presence in 22 countries, its 37 manufacturing plants, its 6 centers of expertise, its 7 technical centers and 17 customer service centers around the world to partner with customers.
