MINI Announces Global Expansion of Its URBAN-X Platform with New Impact Program, Growing its Sustainability Commitments

The urban tech program for startups reimagining city life expands its international reach

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--URBAN-X by MINI today announced its new MINI Impact Program to support entrepreneurs with ideas that improve urban life across the globe. Starting with Singapore, Indonesia, France, and Italy, this program is an expansion of the URBAN-X platform that works to support transformative climate technology to solve cities’ toughest challenges.

For the Impact Program’s four-week pilot, URBAN-X worked with the MINI markets to identify four startups working in the field of urban tech. URBAN-X experts provided bespoke guidance to the selected startups to fine tune their solutions. The four startups were:

• Dulang: Based in Indonesia, Dulang empowers people to make better choices when it comes to used electronics, whether it’s through repair, second-hand sales, donations, swapping or recycling, significantly reducing the share of e-waste that ends up in landfills.
• FabBRICK: Based in France, FabBRICK uses patented technology to turn textile waste from the fashion industry into decorative and functional brick-sized blocks that can be used to create interior paneling, furniture, display systems and other products.
• Humfree: Based in Singapore, Humfree develops and designs electric scooters that people can own rather than rent, as most current electric scooters are used as a disposable commodity product.
• Wiseair: Based in Italy, Wiseair measures outdoor air quality in cities and helps local administrators and communities to set up and promote clean air initiatives and policies with its air quality platform, ido.

“After supporting eleven cohorts of startup founders as they build breakthrough, scalable solutions over the last six years, we wanted to help strengthen even more emerging startups, especially in areas of sustainability as the call to combat climate change has never been so pressing,” said Sarah Schappert, Director of URBAN-X Europe. “Responding to demand to create a presence with URBAN-X from various countries where MINI is represented, we’ve globally expanded the URBAN-X platform with this MINI Impact Program —an extension that allows us to maximize our impact amid growing climate challenges in cities around the world.”

The Impact Program is the latest in a string of program updates. Earlier this year, URBAN-X announced its partnership with venture capital group JVP, to fuel its Growth Program, which incubates startups in later stages. Launched in 2016, MINI built URBAN-X to support companies that want to create unconventional solutions for sustainable urban development. Since then, URBAN-X has invested in over 80 startups across the globe. To date, four URBAN-X portfolio companies have been acquired and 88% of companies have gone on to raise their next round of capital.

About URBAN-X

URBAN-X is the platform for founders reimagining city life. Built by MINI in 2016, URBAN-X partners with startups to build bold technology solutions for a sustainable planet. Breaking from traditional startup program molds, URBAN-X provides entrepreneurs from Seed to Series B with individualized and tailored support that accelerates growth and builds successful businesses for the next generation of climate- and city-focused innovators. Core to its platform, URBAN-X offers world-class engineering and design resources, industry-leading investment capital from our venture partner JVP, a global network of investors, policymakers, corporate strategies and end-customers, and premier educational content for a global network of founders. Find URBAN-X on Twitter & Instagram at @urbanxtech or at https://urban-x.com/.