We are looking for early phase startups developing solutions in the sustainable mobility area, with a focus on zero emission vehicles, electrification, intelligent processes and vehicles, as well as services. Validate your ideas quickly and co-design the future of sustainable mobility.
Join our Venture Access – corporate startup incubator – with the possibility to co-locate to one of our R&D sites in Gothenburg, just a bike ride away to some of the world’s biggest mobility industries.
Read more about CampX here: CampX by Volvo Group
If we select your startup for our business incubator, you will get to work right beside the R&D teams of Volvo Group in the CampX innovation hub. You will receive mentoring from our (chief) engineers, senior managers, and former Volvo-employees-turned entrepreneurs.
We value your time as much as you do, and we add value where we believe it will be most beneficial. Therefore, there are no additional programs and no obligatory workshops in the Venture Access – and with a hands-off approach. We believe you should spend your time on your company instead. We aim to build a strong peer-to-peer community of founders throughout our technology business incubator, geared toward changing the world of sustainable mobility. As we would like to work side by side with your startup, we ask you to move your company to our R&D innovation hub in Gothenburg, but it’s not mandatory.
We help entrepreneurs capture their uniqueness, provide instant customer validation, and getaccess to our corporate network. The goal of our incubation program for startups is to validate anddevelop solutions quickly, to give you the necessary support in this process and to createsustainable solutions that will change the mobility industry.
To ensure a successful collaboration, the Volvo Group tech startup incubator focuses on companies that are ready to hit the ground running. As part of the Venture Access startup incubation program, we welcome early phase startups working on a solution or prototype that will be ready to test in the near future. If you’re interested in applying, here are the criteria we consider:
Maturity of technology/solution: Startups must have a solution that will be ready to test in the near future.
Registered company: Startups need to be a registered company; we do not work with individual entrepreneurs.
Scalability: The solution must demonstrate potential for scalability, allowing it to grow and adapt to increasing demand or new markets
Financial stability: Startups should show financial viability.
Sustainability focus: We favor startups with a clear environmental benefit, aligned with Volvo Group’s vision for sustainable transport.
Roman lustin CEO - Fyrqom
Meet Roman, founder of one of the startups in the CampX Venture Access.
With a tire pressure monitoring system, the driver is informed if one of the tires loses the pressure. Today rather few heavy-duty vehicles are equipped with such a system. From 2024 though there is a legal demand in Europe that all trucks and trailers should have such a system. Today the tire pressure monitoring system must be calibrated manually on every truck when they are built and when a tire is changed in a workshop. Roman Iustin, a Volvo Group engineer, had an idea on how to make this process more efficient with an automated calibration system.
Read more here: Volvo Group spins out new company Fyrqom AB
A corporate incubator/business incubator – what we call Venture Access – is a way to work side by side with startups in relevant industries. Being close to each other will help to develop ideas, solutions, products, or services and to grow as a company. Both for startups as for Volvo Group.
Through our tech incubator, the startups are provided mentorship, connections, facilities, and quick customer validation.
The purpose of both our business incubator and accelerator is to help startups move forward – but there are some differences between them.
A startup incubator, what we call the Venture Access, typically engages startups in an earlier stage, providing deep industry access and fostering close collaboration with peers in the ecosystem.
A Venture Client, or startup accelerator, on the other hand supports the rapid growth of an already established startup with a defined solution or product, through short proof-of-value projects together with Volvo Group experts.
Both programs open up our industrial network, facilitate the sharing of expertise and insights, and help startups validate their customer assumptions more quickly.
The role of a corporate incubator is to open its corporate social network that startups might otherwise have not been able to access it. Corporates are often active in only one specific industry and know all the key players. Opening that network and working side by side is a priceless experience for startups.
In this way we are different from university-based incubators that are usually technology and industry agnostic, and it is therefore more difficult for them to support customer validation.
Very often corporates are willing to help startups but want something in return: a first pilot, a first investment, or securing an exit in some way. We do not believe in this approach.
We truly think that by keeping our hands off we will create the most value together. We have no desire to limit you in your startup journey. We will not interfere with your customers, your IP or your (potential) investors, and taking equity is not part of our startup incubation offer.
Of course, if you want us to, we will happily talk about being your first customer, your strategic investor or your advisory board member!
Yes, we will charge a reasonable fee for using our services, comparable with renting an office in any inner city or science park. Our business model for startup incubation revolves around this fee, grants from governments and funding from Volvo Group. The incubator does not take equity.
Our goal is to build an ecosystem of corporates, startups and other key players in the innovative ecosystem around sustainable mobility. Therefore, your startups success is our success weather you are part of the Venture Client or the Venture Access/Incubator program. We have numerous technical challenges and opportunities within Volvo Group and working together with startups can help solve them or discover new opportunities together
First, you need to check a few boxes: are you a founding team working fulltime in the startup with a majority of the shares and have freedom to operate? And are you active in the sustainable mobility industry with a hardware or software solution? Then you can apply to our incubator here.
No, however we have seen great advantages of the Venture Access (Incubator) companies being on site being close to our engineers and to the business.
No, but we highly recommend it. Being incorporated in Sweden means you are more interesting for local investors, and it is easier to work with local actors. It is also possible to apply for research and development grants.
Yes, send in an application for either the business incubator or the accelerator and we will contact you as soon as we can.
CampX is a global innovation hub based in Sweden, France, India and North America however the Venture Access is for the time being based in Sweden. We are located in the Lundby campus in Gothenburg where R&D engineers working within the areas of Electromobility, Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Hydrogen are co-located. In Gothenburg, some of the world’s largest mobility industries are just a short bike ride away from each other — creating unique opportunities for collaboration.
