An accelerator that opens the market. This is how ORLEN works with startups

This year marks 5 years since the launch of the ORLEN Skylight Accelerator program – the first international corporate acceleration program in Poland. How can you sum up this period?

That’s right, we’re celebrating our fifth anniversary this year. During this time, nearly a thousand entities contacted us, of which approximately 90 percent were companies from Poland.

We announced approximately 350 business challenges, and approximately 15% of them of them, we found solutions, i.e. companies with technology that meets our needs. In total, we implemented approximately 50 pilot programs. For an acceleration program, this is a really good market result.

Yes, it’s a good result, but let’s start from the beginning. How did it all start in Orlen? You have been in the Accelerator from the very beginning, you launched it, so you seem to be the best person to talk about its beginnings and effects. The accelerator starts in 2021…

Before we launched our own program, we took part in initiatives organized by PARP. This was, among others, ScaleUp, which covered a wide range of industries, and a program focused on electromobility. We carried out approximately 10 pilot projects and quickly noticed the great potential of this project. When the PARP programs ended, we decided to create our own model – also open to foreign entities. We also wanted to move away from the time constraints typical of other accelerators.

Many projects require a full annual cycle, whereas market programs allowed for 6 months. We have also expanded the criteria – we do not limit ourselves only to companies operating for less than five years. We accept startups even with 10 years of experience, because often only then do they achieve technological maturity and real implementation potential.

In total, you already had 18 recruitments. What examples of startups have implemented solutions that Orlen uses today?

The scope is very wide. We have, among others: a digital twin of the DRW (Tube and Tower Distillation) installation, which improves the efficiency of LPG production. There are sensor solutions – e.g. valve sensors or railway infrastructure monitoring systems for safety.

We also implement “soft” projects, e.g. an employer advocacy platform that supports employee engagement and the company’s image. There is no shortage of deeptech solutions, such as feed stream optimization systems for hydrodesulfurization installations. Importantly, some startups are later transferred to our VC fund – we invest, among others, in: in companies such as Cthings, Enelion and Apeiron Synthesis.

What exactly does your accelerator give young companies? And what does the process of functioning in the program look like – from the moment of signing up to the implementation of the project?

We are looking primarily for ready-made solutions – not companies that just want to create something. We are interested in existing technologies that respond to specific challenges published in the calls for proposals. We sign a contract with selected companies, carry out a pilot project, and then we have two paths: commercial implementation or participation in the tender process – with our support and references.

When it comes to the recruitment itself, it is a clearly structured process and consists of six stages. What?

The first stage is to define business challenges, i.e. we determine where we would like to increase the effectiveness of our activities. Then we accept applications (approx. 2-3 weeks). The next stage is selection and pitching meetings, during which startups present their answers to the challenges we set. Then the startups prepare detailed presentations, and the projects are submitted to a steering committee with the participation of representatives of various areas: from controlling, through IT, strategy to the specific business area that defined a given challenge.

This committee collectively decides whether or not to accept the company for the pilot program. It does this based on previously prepared business justifications for implementing such a project. After the decision, we sign a contract and negotiate the costs – because we pay for the pilot. We do not want young companies to invest their own funds in cooperation with us, which is why they receive financing from us during the acceleration period. After signing the contract, we start the actual pilot, i.e. we enter our infrastructure with the startup.

In practice, what does it look like?

Together with the startup, we enter our real operating environment, which involves many requirements, because some of the facilities are critical infrastructure. That’s why we create something like a “sandbox” that allows us to conduct tests safely. Pilots take place in real, not laboratory conditions. Pilots are also possible in our facilities, i.e. gas stations. One of such startup projects were electronic labels, which appeared on a test basis in our stores. Or an automatic large vending store for three hundred products.

Some of the challenges you give companies are very difficult. This recruitment includes, for example: “Detection and quantification of steam leaks”, “Heat recovery from exhaust gases in an acidic environment”, “Digital Twin of medium voltage (MV) networks”.

It’s true – the current round is demanding. There are ten very specific and, you might even say, a bit deep-tech challenges. On the one hand, because we are tackling more and more specialized topics, on the other hand, we have already faced many “easier” challenges. However, we do not limit ourselves to any areas – decisions always result from business needs. We think broader than many foreign accelerators that focus mainly on energy transformation.

There are virtually no corporate accelerators in Poland. Your example builds know-how on how to deal with acceleration in corporate structures.

It’s actually kind of like that. The key thing is that we have a network of innovation coordinators throughout the organization – about 30 people who constantly analyze business needs. From these conversations we come up with a pool of topics that, for various reasons, are not addressed by large companies, or it is not possible to implement them internally. Whether it’s due to lack of resources, competences or low priority, despite the impact on e.g. EBITDA. And that’s what our accelerator is for.

Who can apply to you for recruitment? And how often do these recruitments take place?

Recruitment takes place approximately every month and a half. Previously, we operated rather quarterly and announced even several dozen recruitment challenges. Now we have more frequent recruitment, but fewer challenges. Any entity that has been operating on the market for no longer than 10 years can apply. The size of the team does not matter. Sometimes small entities operating on the market for a short time employ twenty people and have an advanced solution. And there are also those that have been operating for eight years and have, for example, five people, and they outsource the rest of the team.

We are also looking for foreign entities, because the challenges we define are universal. We do not want to close ourselves off, and we are aware that our brand, for example in southern Europe, is less known, and there may be very good solutions that we need to develop our business.