As part of the SET Award 2019, the top 100-ranked start-ups who applied for the SET Award were rewarded the opportunity to participate and showcase as part of the Innovation Hub at the 24th World Energy Congress (WEC24) 2019 in Abu Dhabi. Sponsored by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, this incredible opportunity includes travel and accommodation expenses, and a showcase space for the SET100 at the congress.
In the lead up to WEC24, we asked the participating SET100 start-ups to answer a few questions to provide potential partners the opportunity to learn more about them and to also help other start-ups learn from their experiences. We thank them for their work toward the global energy transition and for sharing with us the following insights.
#SET100 Start-up: Fuelsave (Portugal)
We help road freight companies save fuel costs. Fuelsave is building a technology that allows road transportation companies save up to 20% in fuel, helping them to become more competitive in their markets.
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Traveling, pitching, partaking in meetings, and networking requires considerable time and effort. Other than perhaps being given a blank check, what is the best case scenario or result you as a start-up hope to get out of participating in initiatives such as the SET platform and the Innovation Hub at the 24th World Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi?
The best case scenario for Fuelsave, is to create a network of contacts, of potential partners and investors. Being a B2B company, Fuelsave has been establishing partnerships in Portugal, with companies in the Road Freight Transportation sector, and so far it has been very successful for us. But since we are beginning our internationalization process by the second semester of the year, it’s important to establish contacts and partnerships outside of Portugal, and such things as the SET platform and the Innovation Hub at the 24th World Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi, will really help us to achieve this goal.
Given the stage of your start-up and your particular focus/sector/technology, what is one challenge that you have overcome or lesson that you have learned that may be valuable to other similar start-ups?
One of the most difficult barriers that we faced, and that was really hard to overcome, was in the hiring process, more specifically, in the Software area, where in Portugal, is very difficult to attract people from these area. The process of development of our service delayed because we took much more time, than we initially thought we would, to hire capable and competent people, that could bring Fuelsave to the next level. Thankfully we overcome this problem, and managed to hire 7 employees, since the beginning of the year, and we are planning to hire more, with the internationalization process, later this year.
What is one of the main obstacles or regulations that you have had to overcome prior to, or in preparation of market entry into your given business environment?
There are no main obstacles or regulations to market. Although the product is new to the market, it is classified as a telemetric solution, which is a very well-known and mature business, and is properly regulated. In Fuelsave we’ve decided to design the product architecture according to the most recent regulations, such as GDPR.
Thanks for reading and thanks again to Fuelsave. More information about them can be found here: https://fuelsave.io/
More about the SET100, including a full list of each SET100 start-up can be found here.
