On 29 January 2019, Kitemill pitched its solutions for Airborne Wind Energy to top Equinor representatives and had the chance to deliver a detailed presentation in an exploratory one-to-one meeting Equinor stakeholders and investors.

Speaking about the event, Kristin Aamodt, Managing Director at Equinor Technology Ventures, detailed its context and relevance: “For a start-up or SME it’s critical to get early feedback from a potential customer like Equinor. For Equinor, it enables us to tap into the most interesting innovations in the energy sector in Europe right now.”

Bjørn Kåre Viken, Vice President for Technology Collaboration at Equinor, outlined the enthusiasm and diversity of the companies he met: “I really liked the passion and the variety of ideas presented. Equinor is facing challenges today and will face new challenges tomorrow. It’s important for us to really get these good ideas and to see how we can implement them in our organisation.”

Hårklau: “Equinor was an excellent host for this event and participated with the right people from their organization. Our presentation was well received, and we got many relevant questions for the audience. Equinor representatives in general had good basic understanding of the Airborne Wind Energy segment. It’s likely that the dialog between Equinor and Kitemill will continue as a result of this event, promoted by the EIC pilot”.

This was the first EIC Corporate Day of 2019, following 15 successful initiatives that since 2017 have matched over 300 companies backed by the EIC pilot funding programmes with some of Europe’s largest corporates.