Groupe Renault has teamed up with NUMA, a leading startup accelerator, to launch CityMakers in partnership with AXA, Nissan, RCI Bank and Services and the City of Paris. Clara Terrien, Innovation Ecosystem Manager at Renault Innovation Lab and Nissan Research Center in Silicon Valley, gives us more information.

What is CityMakers? “CityMakers aims to accelerate the transition toward a flexible and sustainable urban mobility. The program takes place at Renault Open Innovation Lab – le Square located in Paris.”

Why launching CityMakers? “I am convinced that the transition toward a flexible and sustainable urban mobility requires to build a long-term vision but also to coordinate innovative actions through new collaboration modes between key stakeholders. We observe that today’s rapid urbanization leads to new challenges in cities such as congestion and pollution. Mobility solutions powered by technologies (connectivity, electrification, autonomous driving) and usages (shared mobility) have the potential to address these challenges. We estimate that by 2030 more than 25 percent of new cars sold are going to be electric particularly in urban areas and more than 25% of all miles could be traveled via shared mobility services.”

“The time to market of these mobility solutions will be accelerated by new collaboration modes of key stakeholders: private companies, local governments, entrepreneurs, universities, and citizens. That’s exactly the ambition of CityMakers. Within 10 months the program partners and the selected startups along with mobility experts will experiment 7 innovation solutions within the City of Paris.”

Who are the partners? “We are proud to team up with Numa, France’s first startup accelerator, to launch this program in partnership with:

AXA: Leading insurance brand worldwide.

• – Nissan: Since 1999 the Renault-Nissan Alliance has built a unique business model that has created significant value for both companies. The Alliance is the world’s largest maker of electric cars.
• – RCI Bank and Services: The financial company of Groupe Renault.
• City Of Paris: The capital of open innovation and leader of the sustainable transition.

What are the benefits for the startups? “During the program the selected startups will have the chance to work with public and private leaders in their sector. Among others they will receive a €10,000 grant to support their experiments, access exclusive resources (experimentation field, data sets from the corporates partners etc.), benefit from NUMA expertise and a network of experts to accelerate their business.”

• Groupe Renault launches ‘CityMakers’ to advance urban mobility innovations.