Ben - Digital Marketplace for fleet services

Ben is an all in one service platform to manage fleet maintenance & provide an overview of the fleet status - services include: e.g. on-site cleaning, servicing and repair. The core product is a digital platform built as a cloud-based web-app.

"With Ben we enable managers of small and medium-sized fleets to access services normally reserved for large fleets. In addition, Ben dramatically reduces the administrative burdens of fleet management."
– Axel Kalisch, Managing Director of Ben Fleet Services GmBH and Senior Venture Architect at Bridgemaker

Ben Fleet Services offers fleet managers all relevant services for their fleets and makes managing them worry-free. In the future, the services will include on-site cleaning, maintenance, repair and relocation of all vehicles in a fleet. All BEN services are easily scheduled via the convenient web-app, one-time or recurring. The app also shows status and required maintenance cycles of all vehicles. With launch booking and scheduling of on-site cleaning is the currently available service.

Interested customers sign up on www.benfleetservices.com and then can onboard themselves or request on-boarding support of Bens customer success managers.

“After an initial cleaning session the majority of customers books regular cleaning slots for their entire fleet. Many are surprised by the quality of our on-site cleaning providers.”
– Kilian Veer, Board Member of Ben Fleet Services and Partner at Bridgemaker

Bridgemaker co-built the venture with EnBW to strengthen their position in the future mobility market and extending their role as a mobility infrastructure provider.

Several socioeconomic trends have fostered the need for the Ben business model such as sharing economy, centralization of services or service society.

Peers - Employee learning platform to fight the shortage of skilled professionals

Peers is a Software as a Service offering individual learning paths to employees that need to keep up with new requirements in a disruptive world. Through a mix of software and consulting, it serves SME clients.

TRUMPF initiated the product out of its intrapreneurship program. In this program, a long term employee pitched the concept, which he developed in his role as a union leader. Through the course of the program, he validated the idea together with Trumpf EiR Elisa and the guidance of Bridgemaker.

Peers starts with a focused market entry on production companies that face their environment shifting towards industry 4.0. Traditional machine operators are struggling to learn the new requirements demanded of them by their evolving role. Smaller companies especially are having a hard time with organizational learning that supports their employees. Peers offers affordable learning plans at a professional quality level, thereby providing support to the SMEs and their employees. A curated marketplace of learning opportunities augments individual learning plans.

"Peers is a perfect example of how AI can deliver impact in products today. "

– Thies Hofmann, Partner at Bridgemaker

Bridgemaker co-builds the venture's product offering, working with Peers and their potential clients to create the UI, UX, platform infrastructure and AI algorithm required in order to mass individualize the solution.

“Peers can help TRUMPF customers and their own clients to leverage the potential of their company, making their business more productive and adaptable to changing customer needs by empowering their workforce.”

– Elisa, EiR Peers

Uptodate - IoT Smart Home Service bundles

Uptodate is a company building platform targeting the smart home space. Uptodate validates and launches products and services with own business models to build their own ecosystem.

Bridgemaker built the first product after a series of workshops with corporate decision makers as well as deep user research with existing and new customers. The first service is now live in the App-Stores and will reshape home safety during vacation and travel.

"Holiday Care is the first of many products that will form a digital ecosystem of insurance products for all kinds of target groups including homeowner, tenants and young parents."
– Pawel Netreba, Venture Partner at Bridgemaker

Holiday Care gives access to smart surveillance, a 24h emergency service and ensures plants are cared for when homeowners and tenants travel or are on vacation. The heart of this service pack is a mobile security tower that is equipped with modern sensors detecting movement, smoke, or water leaks. Combined with the connected 24/7 service control center this little piece of hardware gives Holiday Care customers the peace of mind to truly enjoy holidays without worrying about the safety of their home.

VKB built the venture with Bridgemaker to capture the customer interface in the daily life of property insurance holders. With protective services, VKB is building the future of insurance. The future in smart home and IoT is in the seamless connection of smart hardware and real-life services. Connecting these worlds is the next frontier of customer centricity.

VAI - A digital finetrading company with instant scoring

VAI is an on-demand purchase financing platform delivering real-time options for refinancing of trade purchases for SMEs. It is an own legal entity with a dedicated staff > 25 FTE and more than 2000 customers.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (known as SMEs) in particular frequently experience short-term financial difficulties in the period between purchasing goods and selling them on. This segment is often unattractive for traditional banks since the sums involved are too small and the periods of time are too short. In response to this, tech company VAI has been offering its customers a transparent financing solution since 2017. Purchase financing is an easy way for companies to extend their payment terms to a maximum of 180 days for goods purchases of up to EUR 50 000, thus gaining short-term liquidity.

Vai initial strong growth received an additional boost by cooperation with VR Factorem, a leading German factoring provider for SMEs in 2018.

"Vai is the archetype of a successful collaboration between Bridgemaker and an industry partner proving our approach to combine their know-how and strengths with the entrepreneurial spirit of our startup talents."
– Henrike Luszick, CEO and Co-Founder of Bridgemaker

Bridgemaker co-built the venture with Berliner Volksbank to deliver new kinds of financing solutions to the core segment of “underbanked” SME customers. Finetrading as a financial product becomes highly attractive for smaller loans due to AI-based automation of scoring and self-service process execution.

Bridgemaker identified this business opportunity after a thorough process of user interviews and strategic validation. Implementation of the idea was realized through in-house delivery of product and recruiting of expert talent for key positions.