Unfortunately, the automotive world doesn’t always find its way to the doors of startups with brilliant connectivity and autonomous technology. And sometimes, automakers and Tier 1 suppliers miss out on some big companies by only looking into Silicon Valley, Israel’s Silicon Wadi, or China.

Recognizing how hard it is for startups to get noticed and how long it takes for OEMs to sort the wheat from the chaff in the world of automotive tech, France has delivered its best approved startups to the North. At the gates of America for seven years. He takes them on a 2 week whirlwind tour of the Detroit / Ann Arbor area and Silicon Valley where they feature dozens of car manufacturers, suppliers and influencers. Since the pandemic, the pitches have been done virtually.

The tours are part of Ubimobility, a 9-month development program combined with a 2-week immersion in key automotive and tech ecosystems in the United States and Canadian. Candidates are specifically selected to be suitable for the US and Canadian markets.

This year’s startups are selected from a pool of finalists chosen by jurors from Magna International, FCA Group, Ford, University of Michigan, NVIDIA, Boston Consulting Group, Qualcomm, Valeo North America and Wards Intelligence.

“The pitches of our winners on their innovative solutions were received with great interest by the major automotive players in North America. It was a pleasure to support our candidates and to witness their first steps towards strategic partnerships that will meet the future challenges of mobility, ”says Simon Lelièvre – Head of Transportation at Ubimobility.

If you didn’t have a chance to zoom in with these companies during their tour last month, you can still meet them in person Jan. 5-8 at the France Automobile Pavilion at CES in Las Vegas. The finalists who present their arguments to OEMs and suppliers offer a wide variety of creative and relevant mobility technologies:

Air audit www.Airudit.com “Empowering your speech” is the very essence of Airudit, explains Olivier Raffard, Commercial Director. Startup based in Paris and Bordeaux, it specializes in the design of Human Systems interfaces driven by voice. It was created in 2013 and develops and markets proprietary technologies for the global understanding of human natural language. AIRUDIT is unique because it is able to master the entire processing chain, which goes from the oral expression of a speaker to the response provided by the machine within the framework of a Human Systems relationship in a complex environment, while interacting with information systems to ensure actions and access to the right information. The technology dedicated to the automotive industry is called VECTAI.

ClearDrop technology www.cleardrop.tech “With acoustics, we can drop any type of liquid directly, quickly, from a glass surface,” says Nikos Christopoulos, Founder and CEO. Wet or frost-covered sensors and cameras can disable ADAS systems. ClearDrop is a startup specializing in acoustics and fluid mechanics. Patented technology uses surface acoustic waves to move liquids and remove frost instantly. Potential applications include:

• Cleaning of optical devices in the automobile (such as ADAS sensors and cameras)
• Improve vision in motorcycle helmets
• Clear water from cell phone screens or large outdoor screens
• Solve the problem of “cementation” of solar panels

EGERIE Integrated Cyber ​​Risk Management www.egerie-software.com “With its collaborative approach and intelligent technology, the EGERIE platform helps clients digitize, build, manage and innovatively monitor their cybersecurity strategy by dynamically identifying and anticipating high-risk threats, measuring the results of their efforts. risk mitigation while gaining buy-in. levels in the organization ”, explains Pierre Calais, founder and vice-president. EGERIE helps automotive industry players stay ahead of threats and build highly secure vehicles by implementing ISO 21434 in a smart and digital way.

Gulplug www.Gulplug.com “A new way to connect” is how CEO Henri Trintignac describes the company. Gulplug, a startup based in Grenoble, is developing a unique hands-free charging system called SELFPLUG. It was created in 2014 and allows battery electric vehicles and PHEVs to plug in and unplug automatically without human intervention. It is a conductive system that transfers energy through an outlet in both directions, from the grid to the vehicle or from the vehicle to the grid. SELFPLUG uses the patented magnetic plug of GULPLUG, PAM! (The plug-in is automatic with magnets!) Designed to make the plug-in and unplugging automatic.

Kalima systems https://www.kalima.io/ “Blockchain for IOT – Interconnecting people, objects and services to create value”, says CEO André Legendre. Kalima Systems has developed a proprietary blockchain dedicated to the Internet of Things. Kalima’s mission is to securely collect, transport, store and share trusted IoT data in real time with mobile devices, services and workers. Kalima addresses the security needs of IoT and provides a secure system to collect, transport, store and share IoT data easily and at a low total cost of ownership.

SBG Systems https://www.sbg-systems.com/en-GB “Leading supplier of innovative inertial sensors” This is how co-founder and CEO Thibault Bonnevie describes the company. SBG Systems develops inertial navigation devices (INS) that provide high precision position and orientation for autonomous and assisted navigation of vehicles. The technology is based on internal hardware including a large number of sensors (motion sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers, positioning sensors such as the GNSS receiver) and additional external sensors such as wheel speed and cameras).

TrustInSoft Trust-in-soft.com “Ensuring cybersecurity and software security in a variety of industrial applications in an increasingly digital and connected world”, this is how CEO Fabrice Derepas describes his company’s mission . The company says calling it “spellcheck for the code” is oversimplifying because it’s a lot more analytical, but that’s the idea. TrustInSoft is a software publisher that provides a C and C ++ source code analyzer that allows its customers to mathematically guarantee the absence of source code bugs that can be exploited by hackers. TrustInSoft’s technology combines different formal methods to efficiently and comprehensively detect these errors. TrustInSoft’s clients span different industries, including automotive and autonomous vehicles. Automotive standards such as ISO26262 for security or ISO21434 for cybersecurity tend to increase software development costs. TrustInSoft Analyzer enables cost-effective compliance with these standards by automating certain testing efforts and detecting source code errors earlier in the development process.

The Ubimobility program is in its seventh year. It was developed by two French economic development organizations, Business France and Bpifrance. Business France is a government agency supporting the international development of the French economy and Bpifrance is a public investment bank.