Munich Startup: The last time we talked, your plans for Deepdrive were to have the first vehicle platforms on the road soon in a customer project. Were you able to reach that goal?
Felix Poernbacher, Deepdrive: Vehicle platforms were exciting to us at the time because we had developed a highly innovative and revolutionary electric motor that is so small and compact that it fits in the wheel. This makes completely flat, scalable and modular vehicle platforms possible, which we had planned for many of the new, small vehicle manufacturers. But as we developed our motor technology further, our customers – including many major car manufacturers – asked if they could just buy the motor. They suddenly had this insane interest in our modern technology, which has the potential to truly change the market. That’s why we decided to focus our development work even more on the powertrain itself. Now, almost two years later, we’re working with eight of the ten biggest car manufacturers in the world and sell our motors to them.
Deepdrive is not letting go of its platform – but has put it on hold
Munich Startup: What prompted you to make the pivot?
Felix Poernbacher: It has always been our overriding objective to rethink electrification and electric vehicles. That hasn’t changed in principle, and our core technology has always been the same as well. And we still believe in the platform just like before – there is huge potential in the market. For the time being, however, we’ve put it on hold, because the motor technology we’ve developed has had such a big impact on the automotive industry and has so much traction on its own that we have to focus on it. We don’t see ourselves as a platform startup, nor as a motor startup, but rather as a company that brings highly innovative and revolutionary technologies to the market. And our core technology is a new electric powertrain that our major automotive customers say could become the standard for electric motors in the next decade.
Munich Startup: How has your technology evolved?
Felix Poernbacher: We’ve been able to validate our core technology and to showcase the three major advantages of our motor technology. Firstly, its extremely high efficiency: With our powertrains, a vehicle drives 20 percent further or needs batteries that are 20 percent smaller for the same range. We can produce cost-effectively and easily and our motor is compact enough to fit in the wheel of a vehicle. We’ve set up test facilities and sold motors to customers who have tested them themselves. Over the last two years, we’ve not only been able to show that what we claim is true and that the technology will work, but have also been able to take the first big steps towards series production.
“We’ll be raising new capital soon”
Munich Startup: And how are things looking for you financially?
Felix Poernbacher: We still have sufficient funds from our last round of financing, in which we raised 4.3 million euros. Moreover, we’ve received an additional 1.5 million euros in projects sponsored by the Free State of Bavaria. So we’re well financed, but now we have the big problem – which is a nice problem – of needing to grow. We have an incredible amount of demand and need to scale, especially as a team. That means we’ll be raising new capital again soon, because we’ll need to grow faster than originally planned.
That, however, presents its own challenges. We have a great location here that covers a total of 800 square meters with a prototype workshop, a production line, our own test facilities, our own e-laboratories and enough office space. But when we build a larger prototyping department in the next phase, it’s going to get awfully cramped here. We have more than 30 employees now, but want to grow to around 80, and we need to have room for them here too.
Munich Startup: What lessons have you learned so far in the founding team?
Felix Poernbacher: We’re a team of seven founders, and in the beginning, everyone told us it wouldn’t work. So our biggest lesson was: it works. What helps us, of course, is that we have very clear responsibilities and areas of activity and people can make relatively independent decisions in their fields. And this applies not only to the founding team, but to the entire extended team. It’s important to us that decisions are made as decentrally as possible by the experts in their respective fields.
“We would found a company in Munich time and again”
Munich Startup: What role has the Munich ecosystem played on your path so far?
Felix Poernbacher: The Munich ecosystem has given us so much, it was a real kick start. On the one hand, of course, it’s because many of us come from the Technical University of Munich and we have a good network. But on the other hand, it’s because the environment is incredibly startup-friendly. You have UnternehmerTUM with its very tight, strong network and interesting people, many large companies with a particular affinity for startups and the city offers great support – we would found in Munich time and again.
In the next few years, however, we’ll enter a phase in which we as a company will look beyond Munich, especially when it comes to funding. And that’s because big tickets are simply written outside of Germany and across the pond. But we’ll still have our home and headquarters in Munich. A large part of our supply chain and many of our partners are located in Bavaria and Germany. In the development phase, it’s extremely important to us to have short distances, and we also want to keep our series production in the region. At the same time, it’s important for us as an automotive supplier to be as close as possible to the customer. So if we have a German customer, we’ll produce in Germany, and if we have an American customer, we’ll produce in America, at least for the most part.
Deepdrive is launching series production
Munich Startup: What milestones is Deepdrive working towards next?
Felix Poernbacher: Our next big milestone is to acquire a high-volume contract and to sell our motors to major car manufacturers. And in this respect, we’re on the right track. We’re talking with lots of customers, have extremely good traction and have taken the first major steps towards industrialization on the technology side of things. We have a strong partnership with a major manufacturing partner that we’ll be able to announce in the coming months. In the first step, they’ll be manufacturing the motors for us in series. We’ll also be building the first test vehicles in 2023. In the automotive industry, secrecy is always a huge issue, which is why we can’t reveal more at this point.