Spanish automaker Seat has teamed up with Champion Motors, the brand’s Israeli importer, to create a team dedicated to connected car and smart mobility services.

Xplora has been created to encourage relations with local mobility-related startups and identify innovative projects that could lead to future solutions and business models for Seat.

“Having the opportunity to launch this type of project in Israel, one of our main markets, makes it a strategic location for Seat,” said Luca de Meo, CEO of Seat. “Israel is a benchmark country in innovation, and is considered the ‘nation of startups’, so there is no better place to launch an initiative of this kind.”

The new team of specialists will be headquartered in Tel Aviv and carry out its activity around Israel. Initially, the team will comprise four professionals – three members from Seat’s easy mobility team and a project manager to coordinate and carry out the project assigned by Champion Motors. This team will scout startups and projects that might be of interest to Seat, and carry out concept tests the innovations it believes to be the ‘most outstanding’.

“We are happy to strengthen and deepen the ties between Champion Motors and Seat,” said professor Itzhak Swary, chairman of the board of directors at Champion Motors. “I am sure that our joint activity in the smart mobility market in Israel will yield business opportunities for the Spanish automaker and for the local industry.”

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