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Verizon and Newlab partnered to support next-generation industry applications of 5G

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Startups focusing on industrial automation, mobility, and energy leveraged Verizon’s 5G network and Newlab’s infrastructure to demo their products
  • 165
    Companies Sourced
  • 26
    Companies Piloted
  • 3
    Investments in emerging technology
"We are proud to collaborate with Newlab through the 5G Studio to enable leaders at the frontier of the fourth industrial revolution to leverage the extraordinary capabilities of 5G and edge computing to help create the products and ecosystems of the future."
Elise Neel
VP of New Business Incubation, Verizon

About

Launched in 2020, Newlab and Verizon collaborated to create a 5G innovation program to support the next generation of applications in mobility, energy, and industrial automation. The program’s goal was to uncover high impact startups working on products that could be further enabled by 5G technology. The selected startups used Verizon’s 5G network to test a wide range of solutions in areas including industrial robotics, drone delivery, enhanced GPS, vehicle connectivity, and technology enabling Vehicle-to-X systems. Ultimately, Verizon and Newlab sought to uncover solutions that could drive clean technology usage in everything from urban transit to drone usage, industrial manufacturing and more.

The Challenge

Verizon partnered with Newlab to access startups solving challenges and creating products that could be further enabled by 5G technology and edge computing. Verizon’s 5G network makes it possible to offboard computation from devices to an edge compute while maintaining ultra low latency, offering deep tech entrepreneurs a better and more efficient online environment to build world changing solutions that utilize AI, computer vision for mapping, computer-to-computer connectivity, and more.

The Results

Through three years of partnership and five cohorts of startups, Newlab and Verizon have worked together to prove the value of 5G’s effects on next-generation products and systems. These pilots have led to a number of positive outcomes both for Verizon and the startups, including the opportunity to test technology and receive feedback, and, in some cases, direct investment in the startups. Additional outcomes include further co-development of products, integration into Verizon platforms, additional go-to-market support. In 2022, Verizon collaborated through the Studio with LGE to design a ‘factory of the future’ powered by 5G, testing applications to create a fully wireless factory environment. Importantly, the studio has uncovered several examples of how 5G technology can enable world-changing solutions to issues like food insecurity, factory inefficiency, electric vehicle charging, homeland security, and more.

Quick Stats

The Pilot:

Verizon and Newlab worked together to plan and execute pilots with 26 companies over the course of the engagement. The results of pilots with Fermata Energy, Easy Aerial, and Ghost Robotics are shared below.

The Pilots:

Verizon and Newlab worked together to plan and execute pilots with 26 companies over the course of the engagement. The results of pilots with Fermata Energy, Easy Aerial, and Ghost Robotics are shared below.
Company:
Fermata Energy
Fermata Energy is a leading AI-driven Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) software platform services provider delivering bidirectional charging technology while enabling electric vehicle owners to earn revenue, increase energy resilience, and combat climate change.
Pilot:
Testing Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) capabilities through bidirectional charging technology and cloud-based software
Details:
At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Fermata Energy installed a bidirectional charger and used its software platform to perform tests using 4G and 5G technology. Specifically, Verizon wanted to uncover how 5G could improve Fermata’s service deployment in terms of latency and user experience, and enhance V2X applications that create value from parked EVs. With the charger connected to Newlab's building, Fermata’s pilot compared peak shaving and load balancing operations of the electric grid between 4G and 5G, proving 5G's ability to react to changes in the grid based on near real-time data and with near-zero latency. The tests proved that 5G helped to more efficiently deliver energy services in near real-time, opening the door for future applications of V2X.
Company:
Ghost Robotics
Ghost Robotics is revolutionizing legged robotics and the market for highly-agile and fast tele-operated and autonomous unmanned ground vehicles. Their robot has commercial, military, and homeland security use cases.
Pilot:
Testing the navigation and functionality of a fleet of autonomous robots
Details:
Ghost Robotics set out to understand how its robot could safely navigate its environment while connected to a 5G network. Specifically, the pilot tested 5G’s ability to improve the robot’s ability to use navigation software to offload data to a third party, leverage that data to instantaneously navigate its environment safely, and establish robot-to-robot communication for the deployment of autonomous fleets.
Company:
Easy Aerial
Easy Aerial is a leading provider of rugged autonomous drones-in-a-box that offer monitoring, inspection, and surveillance solutions for commercial, government, and military applications.Their mission is to continue developing their autonomous UAV solutions to protect and save lives.
Pilot:
Flying a drone around the Brooklyn Navy Yard to test its ability to identify objects and react to changes in its environment
Details:
Easy Aerial remotely deployed their Smart Aerial Monitoring System (SAMS), a ‘drone-in-a-box’ solution that includes portable charging hangars, hexacopters, and high resolution EO/IR/Zoom payloads. Access to the Studio enabled them to test their 5G-enabled solutions and advanced processing capabilities at the “edge.” Their tests included AI-enabled object detection and telemetry transmission designed to help infrastructure, enterprise, and government users unlock safe, drone-based data collection at scale. They demonstrated that 5G allowed live drone video and telemetry data to be collected and transferred to and from a MEC for rapid processing and analysis.

We also conducted pilots with:

Exyn Technologies
FOAM
Phantom Auto
Ponto Care
Vecna Robotics
e1ectr0n
EVPassport
Fantasmo
Iterate Labs
Sojourn
Orangewood
SixDof
TargetArm
wheel.me
alwaysAI
Ant Robotics
Ottonomy
Cleo Robotics
Oriient
RGo Robotics
Grassland

The Outcomes

Vetted and qualified investments

Through these pilots, Verizon uncovered key insights around how 5G can transform industries like healthcare, mobility, energy, industrial automation, and more. Through working with Verizon, the startups had a number of positive outcomes. Following the pilot, Ghost Robotics continued to engage with Verizon through product integrations and further partnership on Ghost’s go-to-market strategy, and Ghost even featured with Verizon at Mobile World Congress. Easy Aerial integrated with Verizon’s Skyward team and continued working to push live telemetry data. Fermata Energy received direct funding from Verizon Ventures, and Verizon became a customer, purchasing a number of Fermata’s charging systems. The two are continuing to work on a joint go-to-market strategy.

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Mobility
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