Moonshot Innovation is a Spanish startup that has created moonshot.ceo, the first platform for the CIO and the C-Level to manage Innovation Ecosystems as proprietary environments. The Co-founders are Carlos Marquerie (on the left in the picture), with an extensive experience in consultancy and innovation processes, and David Suriol (on the right), a serial entrepreneur. Carlos and David met in Boston in 2015, while they were studying at Harvard Extension School. They started Moonshot at the end of 2017 and now they are launching the first ecosystems through the platform. Moonshot is planning to land in United States before the summer.
InnoSky had a unique opportunity to interview Carlos and David to learn about Moonshot and innovation ecosystems management.
1) You both founded Moonshot, who claims to be the first AI platform to manage innovation ecosystems. Can you explain what is unique about this platform and how it can be used to promote innovation?
Moonshot is the first platform for the creation and management of Innovation Ecosystems, with AI tools and neural networks. Before launching Moonshot, Carlos had previous experience with SUNN (Startup Neural Network), which was a platform that served us as a prototype prior to the current model. We have studied the regional ecosystems of Israel, Boston, Singapore and Medellin. The conclusion of what we are doing in Moonshot is what universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc … have been publishing in papers for several years.
An ecosystem is a proprietary environment that integrates different actors (startups, companies, research groups, investors, companies and others, up to fifteen) around strategic innovation goals. Moonshot is not a social network, it is a platform directed to the CIO and the C-Level of the companies where through complex algorithms we match the innovation, to the industry and to the DSG (Development Sustainability Goals). It can be understood as an innovation CRM covering the three main areas that a CIO seeks: scouting, innovation management tools and Data Analytics, allowing managing the innovation cycle in a connected and integrated way.
Moonshot is a prism with many faces and benefits: it generates a central intelligent system for monitoring innovation, detects and analyzes innovation needs by industrial sectors and connects them to collaborate, producing transactions between different actors, which have different workplaces, and matching social innovation to technology (startups) and to business models (entrepreneurship).
2) What kind of organizations would benefit from a tool like Moonshot and how can it be integrated within their innovation strategy?
We have five preferred customers. 1.- Corporations. They create demand ecosystems and are tractors of innovation to bring it closer to investment and the market. 2.- Governments, both regional and national. They need to organize the industries innovation maps, to understand what are verticals demanding, and matching them with innovation providers. Thus, governments understand and stimulate innovation with an intelligent tool. 3.- The Hubs, aggregators for innovation providers and seekers. These ecosystems are more effective if they concentrate their offer on a technological base. 4.- Thematic ecosystems, where the innovation goals is established around a theme, such as the ecosystem of women, a hospital, etc … 5.- And finally, the ecosystems of Social Innovation, where we unite the Development Sustainability Goals with the innovation taxonomy. We facilitate the connection of actors who want to carry out social impact projects through disruptive innovation, and with the support of corporations and NGOs that seek the same goals.
3) What elements from the top US innovation ecosystems have been taken into account in the design of Moonshot and how can this tool be leveraged to replicate US models in other countries?
Moonshot was originally designed in Israel, to understand how an innovation economy can grow without powerful industries established in the same region. This model is perfectly applicable to the United States, to geographic ecosystems such as Silicon Valley or Boston. In the case of the US model, the connection of innovation with demanding industries is the basis of the traction of startups and the easiest access to sources of innovation. This high traction model can perfectly be applied outside the US.
4) Typically, differences in culture (e.g. risk aversion) and environment (e.g. access to venture capital or talent) are mentioned as obstacles when trying to replicate successful innovation ecosystems like Silicon Valley in Spain. How important do you think these issues are and what can be done to overcome them?
The most important lesson learned from innovation ecosystems is based on the close relationship between innovators and industries. This connection defines a road map or Innovation Map that is becoming a key competitiveness strategy throughout the world. From this point of view, Moonshot digitizes this relationship and socializes innovation towards all types of companies. The physical ecosystems of Silicon Valley, Boston, Israel have been a source of knowledge to create this global platform. The innovation market has a global character, but the US is the main driver.
5) There is no doubt that Artificial Intelligence is already disrupting many industries and will change significantly most of them in the coming decade, but how do you expect it will disrupt the innovation process itself?
Artificial intelligence allows us to collect and analyze data in a massive way to create patterns of behavior between the innovation network and the way in which disruptive technologies are demanded by companies. These roads can involve more than 5 million routes between economic sectors and sources of innovation. On the other hand, we are developing an ontological system that, based on neural networks, understands the evolution of disruptive technologies and their relation between them.
6) Which do you think will be the main engines of innovation in the next decade?
There are five innovation nodes changing lives: AI and Digital Life, life sciences, new materials and nanotechnology and robotics, energy and sustainability. These nodes are evolving and mixing one to each other, and that allows the industry diversification. The boundaries of industrial silos will be blurred by the action of innovation, changing the nature of industries.