Porsche is looking for startups in the USA

The sports car manufacturer hopes for innovations in the mobility sector. Also: Amazon is discontinuing the flex delivery program in Germany, layoffs at Bird and Peloton’s staff carousel.

Good morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.

The top topics:

Porsche is looking for a start-up in the USA, according to a media report. The sports car manufacturer is particularly interested in companies from the mobility sector. The preferred areas include the digital maintenance of a car, online sales or the analysis of supply chains. The Stuttgart Volkswagen subsidiary is cooperating with the US start-up incubator on the project UP.Labs. According to the “Handelsblatt”, a double-digit million amount should flow from Porsche. Six new companies are to be supported by 2025.

Porsche has been supporting start-up companies for a long time: For example, the car manufacturer has invested in a battery cell production company or in the Croatian car supplier Rimac. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt]

On start-up scene: Who in a few years might be successful found a startup often does so with active support from the university they have chosen. But where is the best place to study as a prospective founder? Our editor Fiona Mathewson has eight colleges researched. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

And here are the other headlines of the night:

Amazon will discontinue its Flex delivery program in Germany, according to a media report. Parcels were delivered within a very short time via the e-commerce company’s program. Amazon worked with private subcontractors who received orders via an app. The American e-scooter company gave further layoffs Bird known, where 23 percent of the workforce is to be cut – around 140 jobs. [Mehr bei Techcrunch und Bloomberg]

Pelotons personnel merry-go-round continues: The New York fitness company, which has already changed the CEO in recent months, is getting another new face. Liz Coddington, who previously ran Amazon’s cloud division AWS, is to replace Jill Woodworth as chief financial officer. The maker of interactive fitness bikes and treadmills has meanwhile come under pressure following the hype during the pandemic. Supply chain problems and falling demand have slumped business. [Mehr bei The Information und Handelsblatt]

One Twitter-Take over by Elon Musk is becoming increasingly unlikely: According to insiders, the financing offers from other parties are now also on hold after the Tesla and SpaceX boss repeatedly threatened to back down from the deal. Musk is asking the social media company to provide him with more data proving that the total number of fake or spam accounts is actually less than 5 percent of the user base. The short message service has not yet delivered this. [Mehr bei CNBC]

SpaceX is unlikely to list its Starlink satellite internet business before 2025, CEO Elon Musk announced at a staff meeting. The aerospace company is thus postponing the IPO issue even further than previously thought. Musk stressed that the Starlink business had to run “smoothly” and be predictable before he thought it would make sense to spin it off as a public company. [Mehr bei CNBC]

Apple has to bow to a new EU regulation: From 2024 there should be standardized charging sockets in the European Union. iPhones must then also be able to be charged with a standard plug, i.e. they must have a so-called USB-C socket. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt, Wall Street Journal und CNBC]

Our reading tip on the start-up scene: Trivago pays eight million euros a year to sponsor Chelsea players’ shirts. Despite this, the team never puts the shirts on during the game. How does such a sponsorship make sense? [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

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Happy Wednesday!

Your Gründerszene editors