Newcomer PortXL organized its very first demoday, showing off the first startups in their accelerator programme. Although the event was called PortXL Shakedown, it shook things up for the slow and rusty maritime sector.
Most surprising of this demoday event was the format. The pitches lasted no longer than five minutes and the ‘necessary evil’ talks with partners and sponsors didn’t take a lot of time. Which is good. The more crap-cutting, the better.
The twelve pitches themselves really surprised me, because every single one on stage really went smooth with their pitch. I spotted two founders (I won’t name them), who nervously practiced some last words before the event / during the break. It turned out okay after all for them. Seeing such passion, really wanting to nail that pitch, is what separates the startup men from the startup boys.
PortXL Shakedown pitches
Most of the pitches weren’t much different from their initial description, AquasmartXL (formerly knows as Addnovation) probably pivoted: from boat drones checking for pollution to boat drones used as harbour surveillance.
What really got my attention is that every single startup made perfect sense. Maybe we can owe it to the organization, or due to the sector where innovation hasn’t taken place for a while.
Which tells us there’s still so much to win in the maritime sector. It’s not that difficult to image why corporates like Vopak, Van Oord and Boskalis were so eager to work with startups and this programme. Port of Rotterdam CEO Allard Castelein announced the programme definitely will continue for 2017.
Smoke cannons
There’s however room for improvement. And that’s about the whole atmosphere. I just can’t keep thinking about how the organization might have looked too much at other demodays (like the former Startupbootcamp HighTechXL) or a tech event like The Next Web.
Okay, the Maassilo in Rotterdam is an awesome location. But there were signings on stage, cliche intro movies to the pitches and at the end two huge cannons bursted out smoke and confetti. There even was an underground entrance through a passage full of smoke and blue light. All great and all, but it felt forced.
For someone who has seen tons of these pitch events, it feels like the organization was trying just a bit too hard. But I can definitely understand the necessity to shake thing up in such a sector. So overall: PortXL made a fine entrance in the Dutch ecosystem.
Image: PortXL