Covid-19 Won’t Lead to Drop in Autotech Startups, says Drive and Next Gear Founder

"When transitioning from being an entrepreneur to being an investor, you realize that you want to get to know the entrepreneurs better, especially at the early stages, to work with them and to help them. When I arrived in Israel I was missing this function, I figured that if I were an entrepreneur I would want such a place and that realization led me to open Drive (innovation center)." This is how Tal Cohen explained his entry into the field of autotech startups in a recent interview with the podcast “30 Minutes or Less.”

Cohen, a co-founder of mobility industry venture capital firm Next Gear Ventures and the Drive Smart Mobility innovation center was a faculty member at Georgia Tech’s computer science faculty and lived in Atlanta for 25 years, where he founded companies and invested in startups. Then, several years ago, he returned to Israel and identified the potential of the automotive industry. "Drive," he explained, "is a place and a mindset that promotes meetings between corporations and startups and creates collaborations in the auto industry."

"The auto tech industry has calmed down a little. At first, it was open to anything: whatever you do - you're a smart guy, you have a good team and an idea that makes sense, it's easy to invest money and see where you can take it. In the end, though, many cases ended in disappointment - How many lidar or radar companies do you really need?" Cohen said.

But some problems that are difficult to solve and need to be addressed, persist, Cohen added. "Startups came to us with problems that big guys like Google and General Motors want to solve — there's no point in them doing it. On the other hand, there are things that the big companies don’t know how to do, or don't realize that they don't know how to do, and in those cases, small companies can help," Cohen explained. "There is a positive maturity in the market, people understand what they can aim for, and it's now easier for me to take a startup and point it in the right direction."

And how will the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis affect the industry? "I don't think there will be a significant drop in automotive startups due to the virus," said Cohen, explaining that the problems the automotive world is facing are fundamental. “The U.S. has more than 30,000 deaths a year as a result of car accidents, look at the effects of air pollution, how much time we waste on transportation, on getting from place to place,” he pointed out. “The auto industry is for real and that is why our sector is expanding.”

The 30 Minutes or Less podcast, which launched in 2017, is hosted by Navot Volk, a senior Israeli tech executive, and tech entrepreneur Aviv Frenkel. The two interview tech founders, investors, and other key members of the Israeli tech ecosystem.