Founding Lead - Airport Baggage Intelligence

36.1 million bags were mishandled globally in 2024. Nearly half of those failures happened at transfer points, where one system hands off to another and nobody has real-time visibility into where the bag actually is.

Airlines have invested billions in biometric gates and passenger experience. Baggage tracking? Still running on barcodes, manual reconciliation, and fragmented data flows. The infrastructure is ripe for disruption and BEUMER Group builds the baggage handling systems at the center of it.

This is the problem. You’re going to build the company that solves it.

The opportunity

Beam has pre-validated this problem through deep industry research and expert interviews. As a Founding Lead, you will take ownership of this opportunity and build a software startup that brings real-time, cross-system baggage visibility to airports, airlines, and ground handlers — leveraging BEUMER Group’s installed base, customer relationships, and domain expertise as your unfair advantage.

You’re not joining an innovation lab. You’re building a real company with equity, funding, and a path to Managing Director.

What the journey looks like

This is an 18-month validation journey divided into 5 phases:

• Insights (Months 1–2): Deep-dive research, 25+ expert interviews, problem validation
• Problem-Solution Hypothesis (Months 3–4): Build a product vision, find a tech co-founder, secure 2 pilot commitments
• Company Idea & Product Validation (Months 5–8): Launch MVP with customers, collect LOIs, write a business plan
• Board Pitch (Month 9): Present your investment case to Beam and BEUMER Group leadership
• Launch a Minimum Viable Company (Months 10–18): Incorporate, hire, convert pilots into paying contracts, scale

At each gate, we assess progress together. Not every validation leads to a startup, and that’s by design.

We want to speak to you if

• You have 5+ years of professional experience in corporate or consulting environments —strategy, operations, engineering, product management, or industrial technology. You’ve worked with or within European industrial companies and understand how they buy, build, and decide.
• You have an existing professional network in European aviation, logistics, airport operations, or industrial technology sectors. You know how to open doors.
• You have the ability to navigate complex B2B sales environments — ideally with experience selling to or working alongside airports, airlines, ground handlers, or German Mittelstand customers.
• You can identify a clear company vision and market opportunity and are prepared to defend it with data rigorously.
• You communicate complex information simply and think clearly without needing to dominate.
• You thrive in ambiguity. You do your homework and go the extra mile to find the opportunity your competitors will miss.
• You are fluent in English and German. Both are essential for navigating BEUMER Group’s customer landscape and the European market.

What Beam offers

• €4,000/month (gross) so you can focus fully on your validation.
• Co-founder equity — we think long-term and want our founders’ motivation to be rock solid.
• Solid funding: if your startup reaches go-to-market, our funding committee secures the runway you need, a minimum 18 months after every round.
• Active support in finding suitable co-founders for your venture.
• Access to our network of experts, advisors, and mentors across logistics, aviation, and technology.
• A home base at our Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg offices alongside other Founding Leads and startup teams.

This isn’t for everyone

This is based in Berlin, on-site 3 days per week (remote 2 days).

This starts as a structured validation engagement. If you pass the board pitch at month 9, it becomes your company with co-founder equity and dedicated funding.

Our bar is high — over 80% of candidates don’t make it to launch. But those who do get funded, supported, and backed by a family business that thinks in decades, not quarters. We’ve launched 12 startups with 16 founders since 2018.