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In Featured, Announcements, Foundries, Munich

SAP.iO Launches Industry 4.0 Startup Program to Drive Startup Innovation in Collaboration with Accenture

October 11, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) is collaborating with Accenture on a virtual startup program focused on Industry 4.0 and based at the SAP.iO Foundry Munich. A jury of experts from SAP and Accenture, alongside SAP partners and customers evaluated numerous applicants and selected 11 startups to join the program.

Various factors are forcing companies to relocate their production back to their core markets. The pandemic, for example, has shown how vulnerable global supply chains are to disruption. In addition, extreme weather events such as droughts, forest fires or floods are increasing and putting even more strain on production. The unreliable supply chain requires companies to open new, highly automated production facilities to meet demand in a timely manner. SAP and Accenture are committed to helping companies create and discover new innovations that drive the total reinvention of supply chain processes.

During the five-month program, SAP will work with the selected startups to integrate and jointly offer solutions for this new manufacturing and production reality. The startups will receive curated mentorship, access to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and exposure to SAP and Accenture customers such as Siemens and BMW with the opportunity to develop high-impact proofs of concept.

“At SAP, we are always on the lookout for transformative solutions that address key customer pain points”, said Shwetha Shetty, Product Owner, Digital Supply Chain Solutions at SAP. “We are excited to team up with Accenture and build this new cohort to help customers realize the promise of Industry 4.0 technologies at scale.”

The following startups are participating in the Industry 4.0 program:

  1. 36Zero is a vision solution that revolutionizes visual inspection by replacing hardware with software, improving inspection results by 1800% and empowering workers for easy and independent installation – better, quicker, more efficient.
  2. aiomatic has developed a digital maintenance assistant to help maintenance engineers in large productions reducing unplanned downtimes using explainable AI.
  3. Aisight develops AI-powered sensors for predictive maintenance to eliminate machine failures and avoid downtime.
  4. Andonix optimizes factory efficiencies through Smart Work Station, a digital hotline and factory collaboration platform that connects machines with frontline workers and supervisors.
  5. Cintoo bridges the gap between reality capture and building information modeling or digital twins. Its SaaS platform Cintoo Cloud manages 3D scanned data collected from the built environment to enable collaborative asset management workflows.
  6. Ecoplant helps industrial organizations reduce electricity consumption and CO2 emissions as well as improves operational efficiency and profitability using IoT and AI.
  7. Kreatize is a leading cloud manufacturing procurement platform that enables mechanical engineering companies to handle the entire process from ordering to delivery of industrial components in a digital, fully transparent and sustainable manner.
  8. Sparetech provides transparency for industrial spare parts that enables companies to automate their spare parts management processes, thereby reducing inventories, costs, and CO2 emissions. 
  9. Surveily allows businesses to automatically monitor and understand what happens on their CCTV cameras observing people, vehicles and processes – 24/7, automatically and in real time.
  10. ThroughPut, Inc. provides an AI-powered supply chain software that predicts demand, reorients production capacity, reassigns warehouse space, and reorders materials optimally for better business, operational, financial and sustainability outcomes.
  11. Zerynth helps companies digitalize their production processes and develop connected industrial products through a plug-and-play IoT platform.

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 450+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

In Foundries, Berlin, HR & People Engagement, Announcements

SAP.iO selects seven startups to join its Future of Work program in Berlin

September 26, 2022 – SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) is about to launch its next startup program focused on the future of work at SAP.iO Foundry Berlin. After months of scouting and evaluating more than 90 startups from 22 countries with 25 experts from within and outside of SAP, seven startups made it into the program.

“As organizations navigate the post-pandemic world, the future of work continues to be a top priority,” said Meg Bear, President & Chief Product Officer at SAP SuccessFactors. “To make sure we continue to help customers put people at the center of every aspect of work, we constantly expand our ecosystem with new and exciting startup partners.”

During the program, the startups will receive mentorship from SAP executives and leading industry experts from Capgemini as well as access to SAP® technology, application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers.

“Business today are looking for innovative solutions that help shape their future of work strategies. This includes solving complex business challenges around cloud, digital and platforms,” said Martin Schmidt, Head of People & Technology Consulting at Capgemini in Germany. “Understanding the skills that are needed to drive this transformation is crucial for them to stay ahead of the curve. We’re excited to work with the selected startups to foster innovation and deliver sustainable value to our joint clients.”

The selected startups represent and deliver innovation in four different categories: Talent Management, Core HR & Payroll, Human Experience Management and Workforce Planning & Analytics. The following are joining the program:

  1. Cobrainer addresses the war for talent from within by automatically profiling employees’ skills and ambitions and providing personalized internal growth recommendations in seconds.
  2. Fifty bridges the intention-action gap in trainings and business transformations. Fifty’s eDoing platform enables rapid and measurable adoption of new behaviors. It combines nudge and artificial intelligence for use at scale.
  3. gradar is the job grading system for the modern workplace. It’s the complete solution to design and manage a job architecture helping businesses perform consistent job evaluation that establishes fair and transparent pay structures.
  4. Onwards HR is a risk mitigation platform that streamlines employee separations and provides advanced analytics to help organizations support their DEI and talent strategies.
  5. Rolebot is the world’s first AI-powered ‘job board in reverse’ for top-tier passive talent, surfacing the other 75% of the skilled workforce who never apply. Its customers provenly land diverse, fresh talent in half the time and exceed their DEI goals.
  6. shyftplan is an AI-based solution for shift scheduling and focused on manufacturing customers. One of the key capabilities in shyftplan is the automation of the scheduling process. The solution is scalable to thousands of employees, even for complex cases.
  7. Workmotion enables companies to grow and expand their teams without regard to national borders. It digitizes and simplifies time-consuming onboarding processes, helping companies create employment contracts instantly and onboard talent from all over the world quickly, easily and with compliance.

With this announcement, SAP.iO Foundry Berlin goes into the next phase and is calling innovative businesses who run on SAP SuccessFactors and want to be the frontrunners in adopting and bringing new value to their workforce, leaders and HR teams.

SAP customers who want to support this cohort can expect to dive right into curated innovation and design thinking workshops, close collaboration on use case definitions, proof of concepts, and ready-to-implement integrations on SAP solutions at the end of the program.

If you want to learn more about how you can get involved and benefit from this cohort, check out the SAP.iO Foundry Berlin website.

If you want to dive deeper, get in touch with the team.

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 450+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

 

 

In Paris, Consumer Industries, CRM & Customer Experience, Announcements, Foundries

SAP.iO Foundry Paris launches new startup program on “Future of Retail and Consumer Products”

September 21, 2022 – SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) has launched a new startup accelerator program focused on the “Future of Retail and Consumer Products” at SAP.iO Foundry Paris. 12 international startups were selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers and investment funds to join the program. These startups were recognized as pioneers in this year’s chosen field, a theme that is more topical than ever with the upheavals in customer habits and the customer journey due to effects of the pandemic and the accelerated digitalization of all businesses.  

SAP.iO Foundry Paris, SAP’s equity-free startup accelerator in France, has already helped more than 65 growth businesses develop their business or their solution. The Foundry’s efforts helped meet France’s overall startup investment goal set at the #ChooseFrance summit, France’s flagship forum for economic attractiveness. 

“SAP.iO is committed to accelerating startups to help customers run at their best. For this program, our focus is on retail, addressing the traceability and authenticity of products as well as offering consumers an improved and differentiating purchasing experience”, said Odilia von Zitzewitz, Interim Lead at SAP.iO Foundry Paris. “We are very proud to accompany this new class of startups and help them scale their innovations.” 

Over the next five months, the startups will have access to personalized mentoring from SAP France executives, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), as well as opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world. 

The following startups are participating in the latest SAP.iO Foundry Paris program: 

  1. Sorga Technology supports retail brands in their digital innovation by offering a low-energy solution ensuring the transparency and traceability of their products.
  2. Arianee provides businesses with simple solutions for building direct relationships with consumers, respectful of user data and independent of large technology platforms.
  3. CollectID can be used to guarantee product authenticity, improve the physical experience and establish a direct communication channel between brands. The solution guarantees the authenticity and uniqueness of products while bringing brands closer to their customers.
  4. DIAKSE develops and markets a solution for creating virtual showrooms in the metaverse with one objective: to enable brands to better communicate about their products and thus help them increase their sales.
  5. Foodetective is a management platform and infrastructure (API) for the F&B industry. Companies use Foodetective to automate operations, simplify administration, increase online revenues and accelerate new business opportunities.
  6. LIVEBUY GmbH is an online shopping solution for leading retailers that provides both the technology and the right creators to build a successful content platform within online shops.
  7. Priceloop has developed an AI to facilitate and automate the pricing process, offering the best prices taking into account all the essential parameters.
  8. Replika Software is a turnkey social selling solution. It enables brands to activate a network of social sellers with a turnkey business to inspire on social media, sell online and connect with customers.
  9. Shopreme GmbH is developing a technology called “Scan & Go” that brings the benefits of online shopping to real shops including speed, ease of payment, personalized recommendations, shared shopping lists, and more.
  10. SmartPixels provides a 3D product configuration and visualization tool to help fashion and luxury brands create personalized and interactive experiences online and in-store.
  11. SMARTZER LTD’s platform is used by brands to transform their videos and live streams into interactive and actionable experiences, allowing them to get direct ROI from content and measure detailed data from video interactions.
  12. YZR automates and accelerates all of its customers’ text data projects with a powerful solution based on automatic language processing.

If you want to learn more about this program, check out the SAP.iO Foundry Paris website or get in touch with the team. 

About SAP.iO  
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 450+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

In Global, Venture Studio, Uncategorized, Blog

Did you catch all our latest SAP.iO Venture Studio highlights?

SAP.iO sign

July – September 2022 | Achievements & News from SAP.iO Venture Studio 

SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It empowers entrepreneurial teams inside SAP to turn innovative ideas into profitable businesses and invests in these new employee-led ventures who are focused on solving some of the biggest problems in enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio helps start and scale new ventures by providing design, development and sales support. Find out more on sap.io/studio. 

Encore by SAP 

As a secondary marketplace, the Encore by SAP solution is enabling regenerative business processes and empowering network members to close the loops and make circular economy a reality. The demand-driven enterprise trading platform provides a simplified way to offer and discover secondary materials and components with integration into back-end procurement or asset management solutions. The platform enables trading of aftermarket components, such as alternators or batteries, and is looking to expand into further areas, such as secondary materials — from aluminium to polyurethane — or production waste and scrap.  

  • Earlier this year, SAP.iO Venture Studio welcomed two new ventures: Encore by SAP received investment to work on enabling the circular economy. Read more about the venture here and watch this intro video with Co-Founder and General Manager Edward Kosec here.  
  • As a matter of fact, Encore is already working with the consortium Catena-X. They kicked off testing Encore’s marketplace to help the German automotive industry become more sustainable. Get more information and impressions of the launch on LinkedIn here.  

Discover more on this venture on https://encorebysap.io/ 

Feather by SAP  

Feather by SAP is an end-to-end recommerce solution that support brands and retailers that want to accelerate the shift from linear to circular business by taking ownership over their recommerce activities. Facilitate the in-house business processes, capture data, engage with the shopper, and own the end-to-end product life cycle. 

  • Feather recently collaborated with students from the Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Potsdam on machine learning applications for resale. Check out some impressions via Feather’s social media presence.  

Discover more on this venture on https://www.getfeather.io/  

GreenToken by SAP 

GreenToken by SAP is a supply chain solution that offers companies new levels of transparency through reliable, blockchain-based information. Gain visibility into where raw materials came from and produce products with knowledge about where and how the materials were produced, even in complex, non-batch supply chains. 

  • GreenToken received funding in 2019 and quickly became a major growth opportunity, enabling customers to trace raw material supply chains for informed purchasing decisions. Let alone in the last quarter they managed to 
    • Announce a pilot with Japanese chemicals company DIC Corporation 
    • Collaborate with automotive consortium Catena-X on creating transparency of emission information from business partners across the entire automotive value chain 
    • Won in the category “Technology, Media & Telecommunication” for the the Australian Financial Review’s Sustainability Leaders for 2022 awards 
    • Featured in Canada’s second biggest daily newspaper, The Globe and Mail, sharing their journey and business idea 
  • Having gained traction among customers and proving their business value, this employee-led venture now graduated from the SAP.iO Venture Studio portfolio and joined SAP’s Sustainability growth area on September 1. With the early support of our inhouse venture program, they have become the latest example of having turned an innovative business idea by SAP employees into a profitable business and product. They will now further scale within the bigger organization. 

Discover more on this venture on https://www.green-token.io/  

Paid Promptly by SAP  

Paid Promptly by SAP drives cash into your business faster by automating receivable processes. Deliver a seamless, personalized, customer experience through Paid Promptly’s automated communication solution, beginning when an invoice is first released until payment is received. 

  • This venture is making invoice communication more convenient. Their solution is now available for all SAP customers on the SAP Store  
  • You can meet Paid Promptly at SAP Spend Connect Live from October 24 to 26 in Dallas, Texas. Register for the event here.  

Discover more on this venture on https://www.paidpromptly.io/  

Source Agent by SAP  

Great sourcing shouldn’t be a secret. Source Agent by SAP gives you the insights and strategies to address spend intelligently and wow your stakeholders. Identify sourcing opportunities by aligning your spend to current market intelligence. Receive a targeted sourcing strategy and supplier recommendations based on your data and requirements for each spend category. Quickly convert strategies and plans into eSourcing event prep and execution. 

  • As the team is preparing for giving customers direct access to their tool, they are offering strategic sourcing for free! Their rapid test program is a quick and free way to help businesses see spend classified and aligned to their scoping framework. Read more about this opportunity here. 
  • You can meet Source Agent at SAP Spend Connect Live from October 24 to 26 in Dallas, Texas. Keep yourself updated by following the venture’s social media presence and register for the event here.  

Discover more on this venture on https://www.sourceagent.io/  

Tax Eye by SAP  

Tax Eye by SAP is a virtual digital assistant technology that improves and powers tax business processes. Tax Eye allows tax professionals to focus on higher value add activities using human centered artificial intelligence and reduce corporate tax burden. 

  • Earlier this year, SAP.iO Venture Studio welcomed two new ventures: Tax Eye by SAP simplifies access to tax intelligence. Find out more in this announcement. 

Discover more on this venture on https://taxeyebysap.io/ 

In Featured, Bangalore, Announcements

SAP.iO Launches Future of Shopping Startup Program in Bangalore

July 5, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced the launch of a new virtual startup program focused on the future of shopping at SAP.iO Foundry Bangalore. Fourteen startups have been selected by a panel of SAP experts, partners, and customers in India to join the cohort. The SAP.iO program is designed to accelerate early-stage B2B startups that can extend SAP’s portfolio and deliver additional innovation to customers.

“With the rising need to build loyalty, large consumer brands are trying to get closer to customers for a personalized shopping experience.” said Ritu Ranade, Vice President for Consumer Products & Life Sciences Industry at SAP Indian Subcontinent. “Within the next 13 weeks, the SAP.iO program offers these select startups the opportunity to start integrating their solutions with relevant SAP products. The goal is to make these solutions available on SAP Store and address our customer’s innovation needs.”

“The need of customers to embark on bold digital transformation initiatives has increased rapidly during the pandemic”, said Alexa Gorman, SVP, SAP.iO. “On this journey, many are turning to SAP.iO to engage with innovative startups that can help make their digital supply chains more resilient or better manage their customer relationships.”

SAP.iO’s growing network of top-tier startup programs enables entrepreneurs to extend SAP’s portfolio with innovative software solutions for SAP customers. Throughout the 13-week program, the startups gain mentorship from SAP executives and leading industry experts, as well as access to SAP® technology, application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers.

The SAP.iO Foundry Bangalore cohort includes the following startups:

  • TangoEye converts existing CCTV data into actionable insights for increased sales conversion and efficiency at retail storefronts.
  • Xplorazzi enables online and offline visual merchandising for consumer goods companies.
  • Rdep is a provider of AI-enabled personalized suite solutions for in-store retailers. The features include self-checkout & mobile-assisted checkout solutions, customer & store insights, pricing & promotions management, inventory management, order management, and more.
  • Fashion offers product search technology that enables shoppers to accurately convey their visual thoughts using machine vision.
  • Text Mercato uses machine learning and workflow products to make the process of content writing faster, better, and more cost-efficient.
  • SignCatch is an open, adaptable, rapid scaling technology platform (PaaS) that instantly connects allstakeholders of the retail ecosystem – brands, distributors, wholesalers, logistics operators and lenders across millions of small retail stores.
  • Entropik reads human emotions using emotion AI to help brands redefine their offerings and shopping experiences.
  • Parallel Dots uses image recognition to help retailers and brands be compliant, offer a better consumer experience in offline stores, and improve the performance of frontline workers.​
  • NextOrbit delivers competitor intelligence on pricing, product line, SKUs, and compliance insights using AI.
  • SalesAssist supports businesses to increase their sales conversions with ‘Live Video Selling & Support.’
  • KiksAR enables immersive shopping experiences across fashion retail, including eyewear, jewelry, apparel, watches, shoes, and makeup. Customers can create and personalize the product in 3D, and try it on digitally with styling and fitment advisory.
  • Discover Dollar helps enterprises identify and recover overpayments and revenue leakages by analysing prices and discounts negotiated over emails and contracts using AI.
  • Infilect measures and improves on-shelf visibility metrics using image recognition for global retail brands and retailers.
  • Noos Technologies is a SaaS platform for creating, printing, and tracking secure codes to the last mile.

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 400+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

 

 

In Blog, Global, Venture Studio

Did you catch all our latest SAP.iO Venture Studio highlights?

SAP.iO sign

April – June 2022 | Achievements & News from SAP.iO Venture Studio 

SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It empowers entrepreneurial teams inside SAP to turn innovative ideas into profitable businesses and invests in these new employee-led ventures who are focused on solving some of the biggest problems in enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio helps start and scale new ventures by providing design, development and sales support. Find out more on sap.io/studio. 

Brilliant Hire by SAP 

Brilliant Hire by SAP intelligently matches candidates with a personalized shortlist of jobs on your careers page based on what really matters to them, using Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

  • With artificial intelligence playing an important role in hiring processes, experts are curious what part AI will play after the great reshuffle. Learn more about how Brilliant Hire by SAP’s uses AI future-oriented in this article. 

Discover more on this venture on https://www.brillianthire.io/ 

Encore by SAP 

As a secondary marketplace, the Encore by SAP solution is enabling regenerative business processes and empowering the network members to close the loops and make circular economy a reality. The demand-driven enterprise trading platform provides a simplified way to offer and discover secondary materials and components with integration into back-end procurement or asset management solutions. The platform enables trading of aftermarket components, such as alternators or batteries, and is looking to expand into further areas, such as secondary materials — from aluminum to polyurethane — or production waste and scrap. 

  • This new venture had their first official outing at Hannover Messe 2022. Find impressions from the event on the co-founders’ social media presence. 
  • Just having joined the active portfolio of employee-led SAP ventures, the venture’s General Manager Edward Kosec was part of an open conversation on corporate entrepreneurship at SAP. Watch the recording on LinkedIn Live here. 
  • Enabling a Circular Economy Through Industry Network Collaboration? Encore by SAP was featured on the SAP News Center highlighting their work with Catena-X 

Website soon to go live. 

Feather by SAP  

Feather by SAP is an end-to-end recommerce solution that support brands and retailers that want to accelerate the shift from linear to circular business by taking ownership over their recommerce activities. Facilitate the in-house business processes, capture data, engage with the shopper, and own the end-to-end product life cycle. 

  • Taking center stage at SAP’s flagship event: Joanna Maryewska, General Manager and Founder of Feather by SAP featured in SAP Sapphire’s virtual keynote about the future of customer experience. Rewatch the whole session here.  
  • The importance of customer satisfaction to businesses is well-known. To connect the environmental impact of the supply chain with eco-friendly choices of customers, SAP Customer Experience announced partnering with Feather by SAP for recommerce capabilities. Read more in this announcement. 
  • #CXUnplugged hosted Joanna Maryewska to talk about reviving retail strategies for brands as they are seeing unprecedented change that can be daunting. Watch the recording here. 
  • With so many achievements this quarter no wonder this employee-led venture is continuously growing. Join the team as their Senior Full Stack Engineer and find all other open positions here.

Discover more on this venture on https://www.featherbysap.io/  

GreenToken by SAP 

GreenToken by SAP is a supply chain solution that offers companies new levels of transparency through reliable, blockchain-based information. Gain visibility into where raw materials came from and produce products with knowledge about where and how the materials were produced, even in complex, non-batch supply chains. 

  • Time to step into the limelight at SAP’s annual flagship event: The venture’s work was mentioned in SAP Sapphire’s global opening keynote by Christian Klein. Watch the replay here and read more about how GreenToken by SAP’s solution helps Unilever with increasing traceability and transparency in their global palm oil supply chain. 
  • SAP and Mitsubishi Chemical Europe are working on a more sustainable and transparent supply chain with GreenToken by SAP providing the solution. Read more about the cooperation here.  
  • Having the word “green” in their name, people probably wonder how green GreenToken by SAP really is. Check out the article on LinkedIn. 

Discover more on this venture on https://www.green-token.io/  

Paid Promptly by SAP  

Paid Promptly by SAP drives cash into your business faster by automating receivable processes. Deliver a seamless, personalized, customer experience through Paid Promptly’s automated communication solution, beginning when an invoice is first released until payment is received. 

  • The venture successfully converted a PoC to a signed paid contract with an American manufacturer. 
  • Interested parties can also test their first free pilot to automate receivables processes. Find out more here. 

Discover more on this venture on https://www.paidpromptly.io/  

Source Agent by SAP

Great sourcing shouldn’t be a secret. Source Agent by SAP gives you the insights and strategies to address spend intelligently and wow your stakeholders. Identify sourcing opportunities by aligning your spend to current market intelligence. Receive a targeted sourcing strategy and supplier recommendations based on your data and requirements for each spend category. Quickly convert strategies and plans into eSourcing event prep and execution. 

Discover more on this venture on https://www.sourceagent.io/  

In Foundries, Announcements, Latin America

SAP doubles its commitment to innovation in Latin America

The company concludes the third phase of expansion of SAP Labs in São Leopoldo, Brazil, and announces SAP.iO Foundry, the first initiative in the region to strengthen support for start-ups.

Miami, USA.  June 20, 2022 – To celebrate its 50 years of global innovation and 28 years of commitment to the development of Latin American companies, SAP announced two relevant investments to promote innovation further in the region.

The first initiative has to do with the third expansion of SAP Labs Latin America, its innovation, research and development center that has been in operation for 16 years and is located in São Leopoldo, in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, Southern Brazil. With an investment of 35 million euros, the new unit built in this center will add about 850 people to its campus, reaching a total of 2,000 employees with 20 different nationalities. The expansion will also create 200 indirect jobs.

The São Leopoldo site is the first and only SAP Labs center in Latin America, and one of the company’s 14 in the world, designed to support the growing demand of companies for innovative cloud solutions.

The purpose of SAP Labs is to develop solutions with the highest standards to help organizations address major business challenges, including sustainability programs that enable them to measure the impact of their initiatives, management and control of energy consumption, waste management, producer responsibility policies, and high-capacity cloud management technologies.

“In addition to helping companies in the region on their digital transformation journey, another great contribution of SAP Labs is that it supports them in the design of their sustainability strategies, working with experts from around the world to create agile and powerful technologies that have sustainable drivers at the center of everything,” said Dennison John, president of SAP Labs Latin America.

Furthermore, the company announces the launch of the first SAP.iO Foundry in the region to accelerate start-ups across all lines of business and industries. The accelerator will also be based in São Leopoldo, with a virtual presence throughout the region.

SAP.iO Foundries is the company’s global network of external start-up accelerators with no capital demand. It provides technical and marketing support to help new companies become part of a curated ecosystem: its offerings become easily accessible to SAP customers.

“This launch is a turning point in our commitment to innovation in Latin America,” said Cristina Palmaka, president of SAP Latin America and the Caribbean. “All over the world, SAP.iO Foundries enhance the innovative impact of start-ups, offering expertise and insights, multiplying their chances of success. In a region like ours, with so many entrepreneurs, this new support will make a huge difference.”

The first call to take part in the SAP.iO Foundry will be launched in September 2022 and will focus on one of the most thriving industries in the region: sustainability in agriculture. Start-ups that wish to apply for SAP.iO Foundry can do so here until July 22.

Since its launch in 2017, SAP.iO Foundries have contributed to the acceleration of more than 400 startups around the world through its 10 funds in strategic cities such as San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Munich, Paris, Tel Aviv, Singapore, Tokyo, Bangalore, Shanghai, and now São Leopoldo.

About SAP

SAP’s strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent, sustainable enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: SAP customers generate 87% of total global commerce. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com, our press room, http://news.sap.com/latinamerica, or follow us on Twitter @SAPNoticiasLAC.

 

In Fund, Foundries

SAP invests in latest startup fund raised by High-Tech Gründerfonds

Team rowing boat in bay

Committed to helping new growth businesses startup and scale, we are pleased to continue our productive cooperation with High-Tech Gründerfonds. SAP will be an investor in their 4th fund. With this new investment, SAP champions the strong development of vibrant start-up ecosystems to ultimately provide our customers with the best startup innovation to run at their best.

With their funds, investors and personal commitment, the High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) contributes significantly to the consistent development of the start-up ecosystem in Germany and across Europe. Until recently, the public–private partnership initiative had successfully launched a total of three funds, financing more than 650 companies, of which more than 150 have been successfully sold or floated on the stock exchange. In addition to seed investments, over 4 billion euros of private funds have flowed into HTGF portfolio companies through follow-up financing. HTGF is now introducing a 4th fund, supporting growth businesses in the areas of Industrial Tech, Digital Tech, Chemicals and Life Sciences with an increased focus on sustainability.

For the past ten years, our cooperation has unlocked access to both our networks and expertise on startups for reciprocal knowledge transfer and sourcing activities. The result has proven value for SAP, HGTF and connected startups. High-Tech Gründerfonds has invested in startups from SAP.iO programs, while HTGF portfolio companies have joined SAP.iO Foundry programs with five of them also being available on the SAP Store.

Exemplary, Datarade was part of the SAP.iO Foundry program in Berlin in 2018 and received seed investment from HTGF later in 2020. The startup has since partnered with SAP to empower customers to easily discover, evaluate, and access external data from commercial data providers. 4tiitoo received investment by HTGF in 2014 and was then introduced to SAP.iO in 2018. The startup participated in our Industry 4.0 program in the same year; their AI-based solution for easy eye control of computers was piloted by both SAP and with several SAP customers and is being offered on the SAP Store. In 2020, they secured Series B funding.

SAP.iO is offering startups the fastest way to scale with SAP – while enabling customers to access innovation complementing SAP solutions.

“We are therefore looking forward to our continued fruitful cooperation with HTGF and seeing our community of founders and startups grow”, Alexa Gorman, SVP, SAP.iO, said. “Our renewed support for the High-Tech Gründerfonds emphasizes our joint belief in a promising future for entrepreneurialism.”

Read the investment announcement by High-Tech Gründerfonds here and find more on our proven cooperation in this interview with Alexa Gorman, Global Head of SAP.iO Foundries and Intrapreneurship.

In Blog, Global, Venture Studio

Did you catch all our latest SAP.iO Venture Studio highlights?

SAP.iO sign

January — March 2022 | Achievements & News from SAP.iO Venture Studio

SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It empowers entrepreneurial teams inside SAP to turn innovative ideas into profitable businesses and invests in these new employee-led ventures who are focused on solving some of the biggest problems in enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio helps start and scale new ventures by providing design, and development and sales support. Find out more on sap.io/studio.

Brilliant Hire by SAP

Brilliant Hire by SAP intelligently matches candidates with a personalized shortlist of jobs on your careers page based on what really matters to them, using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

  • It is no news that artificial intelligence is valuable in the job market, but with the great reshuffle what role will AI play? Read about Brilliant Hire by SAP’s inclusive hiring solution and their focus on skills here.
  • To get to know the venture better, Brilliant Hire by SAP released a Lip Sync video. Check out the video here and learn what Brilliant Hire by SAP does.
  • Brilliant Hire by SAP keeps growing and is now looking for a Developer Node.js, SQL, React/Value and a Senior Integration Engineer. Find all open positions here.

More on this venture on https://www.brillianthire.io/

EverLoop by SAP

EverLoop by SAP aims to empower every business on the planet to achieve zero waste by being a sustainability solution that connects stakeholders across the waste value chain to enable the circular economy, with transparency and traceability.

  • EverLoop by SAP reached a major milestone in March: The venture celebrated their first anniversary on March 1. A lot has happened for the founding team in one year at the SAP.iO Venture Studio. Read all about it here or watch the video here.
  • And there is more great news: EverLoop by SAP shared their journey with the “Intrapreneurship Conclave 2022” and talked about what it’s like being a founder of an employee-led venture. Along the way the venture was announced the winners of the Star Intrapreneurship Award and the runner-up in the category breakthrough ideas for social impact.

More on this venture on https://www.ever-loop.io/

Feather by SAP

Feather by SAP is an end-to-end recommerce solution that support brands and retailers that want to accelerate the shift from linear to circular business by taking ownership over their recommerce activities. Facilitate the in-house business processes, capture data, engage with the shopper, and own the end-to-end product life cycle.

  • Looking for a new way of retail sustainability? Feather by SAP and its end-to-end re-commerce solution helps retailers to shift to circulars business models. Learn more about taking ownership of one’s re-commerce activities here.
  • Women founders often face more challenges when getting started and securing capital. Read the ventures General Manager Joanna Maryewska’s thoughts about how corporates can support women entrepreneurs here.
  • The venture is successfully growing and is now looking for a Senior Fullstack Developer and a Front End Engineer. Find all open positions on SAP.iO.

More on this venture on https://www.featherbysap.io/

GreenToken by SAP

GreenToken by SAP is a supply chain solution that offers companies new levels of transparency through reliable, blockchain-based information. Gain visibility into where raw materials came from and produce products with knowledge about where and how the materials were produced, even in complex, non-batch supply chains.

  • The venture recently published a white paper on material traceability for increased circularity in the chemical industry. Read here how with end-to-end traceability and transparency the solution can increase sustainability in many raw material supply chains.
  • SAP and Unilever announced the successful pilot of the GreenToken by SAP solution to further increase traceability and transparency in Unilever’s global supply chain. Check out this milestone here and learn about the great coverage the news already got in magazines like Supply Chain Digital, Food Logistics and TechTarget.
  • With so many great achievements no wonder the employee-led venture has already been part of the SAP.iO Venture Studio portfolio for two years. Find their anniversary post here.

More on this venture on https://www.green-token.io/

Paid Promptly by SAP

Paid Promptly by SAP drives cash into your business faster by automating receivable processes. Deliver a seamless, personalized, customer experience through Paid Promptly’s automated communication solution, beginning when an invoice is first released until payment is received.

More on this venture on https://www.paidpromptly.io/

Source Agent by SAP

Great sourcing shouldn’t be a secret. Source Agent by SAP gives you the insights and strategies to address spend intelligently and wow your stakeholders. Identify sourcing opportunities by aligning your spend to current market intelligence. Receive a targeted sourcing strategy and supplier recommendations based on your data and requirements for each spend category. Quickly convert strategies and plans into eSourcing event prep and execution.

  • And we had another birthday at the SAP.iO Venture Studio: Source Agent by SAP turned one on March 1 as well. Read all about their experiences during their first year here and watch the video here.
  • Join the team as a Senior Software Engineer and apply now on SAP.iO.

More on this venture on https://www.sourceagent.io/

In Global, Venture Studio, Blog

One year as a venture: EverLoop by SAP

Just about one year ago, the SAP.iO Venture Studio welcomed a new venture to their team: EverLoop by SAP. With this milestone just passing, we thought it would be great to talk to the growing team, give a little recap of the past 365 days and take a peek into their future.

The first 365 days

Founding a venture within a large corporation requires ambition, an innovative spirit and persistence. EverLoop by SAP unites those qualities. Building a B2B sustainability waste management solution, the teams’ goal is to empower businesses to achieve zero waste. The solution digitalizes the complete disposal process and helps businesses track and trace e-waste from the time it’s identified until it has been fully recycled or refurbished. And they have already come a long way.

Starting an employee-led startup within SAP, the team went through a six-week accelerator program in 2020 and received funding at the beginning of 2021. Looking back at the past year, the venture had some big achievements.

“For me, bringing our product to life by releasing the EverLoop alpha product version with eight pilot customers was the biggest achievement in 2021,” said Kiruthika S, Co-founder, and Head of Product at EverLoop by SAP. Ajit Chandran, Co-founder, General Manager, and Head of Business, added “It was when two large enterprises accepted a pilot with us within a week of releasing our first alpha version and of course when an article on our venture was published in one of the leading newspapers in India.”

Challenges and learnings along the way

When putting a vision into action, it is most likely that you will encounter some challenges that need to be tackled. “One of our biggest challenges was to coordinate work and communication with the team,” explained developer Prasanna Nandalal. “Planning your own workday but also aligning your timeline with the timelines of other team members needed some practice.”

Finding oneself in this new environment can be an adjustment. “Working at EverLoop by SAP, I experienced working in a fast-paced and agile start-up environment. This has helped me for my personal and professional development,” said Nishanth Nimbalkar, developer. “I have learned to be a team player and adapted to the challenges of remote working.”

After one year as a venture, the team has probably a pretty good idea of what went great and what needs more attention or adjustment. “Starting a venture is like growing a plant. You have to sow the seed, nurture it daily under the right conditions and hopefully after a while, you can reap the fruits,” said Kiruthika about her learning of the past 12 months. “Each day started like a new day with new challenges, but as a team we found a way to solve them.”

A peek into the future

The EverLoop by SAP plant is starting with follow-on funding in its second year, and we are excited to see the constant development of their e-waste solution and how customers can benefit from it. “Always expect the unexpected from EverLoop by SAP,” promised Ajit. “More features, more automation, more transparency and everything that’s going to make e-waste disposal simple, easy, and transparent.”

Now that the venture team has found their flow, it looks back on an eventful year. “We had a great learning phase and already found many ways to improve our solution,” summarizes Kiruthika. And Ajit reminisces how much of hard work there was behind the scenes by the whole team during their first year:

“All that work pays off when your customer tells you how useful
the product is. That smile that comes on your face — that says it all.”

Well, we can’t wait to see those smiles in EverLoop by SAP’s second year with the SAP.iO Venture Studio and are already curious to learn more about their future achievements.

Happy 1st anniversary, EverLoop by SAP!

About EverLoop by SAP

EverLoop by SAP helps every business to achieve zero waste by connecting stakeholders across the e-waste value chain. By simplifying and connecting organizations, EverLoop by SAP extends the life cycle of used electronic products and opens doors too for enterprises to new sustainable networks. To learn more about the future’s marketplace for electronics manufacturers and e-waste recyclers, go to www.ever-loop.io/

About SAP.iO Venture Studio

SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It invests in new ventures founded by small, entrepreneurial teams inside of SAP who are focused on building the future of enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio provides design, development, and sales support to help these ventures launch. Founding teams join the SAP.iO Venture Studio primarily through the SAP.iO Intrapreneurship and Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) programs. Find out more on www.sap.io/studio/

In Blog, Global, Venture Studio

Celebrating twelve months of Source Agent by SAP

Last spring, the SAP.iO Venture Studio welcomed a new employee-led venture to their portfolio: Source Agent by SAP. Time flies and with this big achievement just flying by, we wanted to talk to the growing team about their first year together and take a peek into its plans for the coming months.

The first 365 days

Starting a business is often a huge step. With just an idea and a vision starting to build from scratch requires great determination — but also handling a lot of uncertainty. However, it is an even greater feeling if one manages to build something that actually works. Transforming strategic sourcing for businesses into a web-based process that supports sourcing managers in their procurement strategy had been on Travis Mattern and Will Caseber’s mind for a while. It ultimately resulted in launching their journey as co-founders of their own venture, Source Agent by SAP, in 2021. They have since come a long way.

After participating in the six-month SAP.iO Intrapreneurship program, the two founders secured funding and started their branding process. Since then, the founding duo behind Source Agent by SAP hired their first employees, built a website and stepped up their social media presence, established a go-to-market approach, and built their concierge delivery model for opportunity assessments with help from the SAP.iO Venture Studio, SAP’s in-house incubator for employee-led ventures.

“Looking back, we did a lot in a short time with a small team. I think our biggest achievement was convincing customers to engage with us, to explore how they manage their sourcing function, and ultimately take a critical look at where they might have opportunities to save money for their organizations,” said Will, Head of Operations and Go To Market for Source Agent.

Challenges and learning along the way

Source Agent by SAP’s solution helps companies maximize the value of their eSourcing software investment and provides a holistic and personalized strategy to address spend intelligently and impress your stakeholders. The venture is currently on track to deliver a working version of their solution to help customers visualize their spend and strategically apply eSourcing in their business. But with so much work already done, what have been some of the challenges the team faced in the past year?

“With the current hot job market, hiring technical resources was — and is — very challenging,” said Travis, General Manager of Source Agent. “I did not anticipate it would take so long to find qualified resources.”

Hiring while working from home brings another challenge to the mix. However, as the old saying goes, good things take time and the team has since expanded from two co-founders to thirteen people today.

Even though Travis and Will knew the potential of their idea from day one, the true value of the approach became most apparent when talking with prospective customers.

“My greatest learning this year was the confirmation from prospects that we are bringing a new concept that is highly in demand by an underserved market.” Will said. “To give the best possible outcome, we use both the sourcing activity on the SAP Business Network and market data from our data partners. But this learning also increases the pressure for the team to move at pace.”

A peek into the future

With their first seven customers, the team is currently working hard on their solution and are eager to make moreprogress.

“We spent a lot of time in the first year establishing a brand, building a team, developing partnerships, and learning from customers via our concierge services,” Travis summarized. “We are now growing our development team to digitize our learnings and deliver on our vision of simplifying strategic sourcing.”

Thinking back about the first year of Source Agent by SAP, Travis recapped: “Our first year was stressful, yet very exciting.”

Well, we congratulate Source Agent by SAP to their first twelve months as an employee-led venture and are excited to hear about their next milestones and the ongoing partnership with the SAP.iO Venture Studio.

Happy first anniversary to Source Agent by SAP!

About Source Agent by SAP

Great sourcing shouldn’t be a secret. Source Agent by SAP gives you the insights and strategies to address spend intelligently and wow your stakeholders. Identify sourcing opportunities by aligning your spend to current market intelligence. Receive a targeted sourcing strategy and supplier recommendations based on your data and requirements for each spend category. Quickly convert strategies and plans into eSourcing event prep and execution. More on this venture on www.sourceagent.io/

About SAP.iO Venture Studio

SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It invests in new ventures founded by small, entrepreneurial teams inside of SAP who are focused on building the future of enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio provides design, development, and sales support to help these ventures launch. Founding teams join the SAP.iO Venture Studio primarily through the SAP.iO Intrapreneurship and Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) programs. Find out more on www.sap.io/studio/

In Blog, Global, Venture Studio

Did you catch all our latest SAP.iO Venture Studio highlights?

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October — December 2021 | Achievements & News from SAP.iO Venture Studio

SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It empowers entrepreneurial teams inside SAP to turn innovative ideas into profitable businesses and invests in these new employee-led ventures who are focused on solving some of the biggest problems in enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio helps start and scale new ventures by providing design, and development and sales support. Find out more on sap.io/studio.

Brilliant Hire by SAP

rilliant Hire by SAP intelligently matches candidates with a personalized shortlist of jobs on your careers page based on what really matters to them, using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

  • Brilliant Hire received follow-on funding! Discover what the successful validation of the venture’s three-year product roadmap means for solving customers’ challenges in recruiting.
  • Thanks to AI, Brilliant Hire by SAP is able to simplify the recruiting process as announced in SAP TechEd’s News Guide 2021. Read here how AI is at the center of recruitment processes by SAP SuccessFactors with Brilliant Hire by SAP as a major component.
  • Best-in-class organizations are increasing the use of AI throughout their recruiting process which is exactly what Brilliant Hire by SAP expected. Learn more about AI in the recruitment process and what the venture’s General Manager Jeanine LeFlore has to say on it on Forbes here.
  • As the venture continues its success story, they are now actively looking for Developers, Project Managers, Engineers, and Analysts. Find all open positions on SAP.iO.

More on this venture on https://www.brillianthire.io/

EverLoop by SAP

verLoop by SAP aims to empower every business on the planet to achieve zero waste by being a sustainability solution that connects stakeholders across the waste value chain to enable the circular economy, with transparency and traceability.

  • The venture, its business idea and product development were discussed in a feature in national newspaper Times of India: A big moment for EverLoop by SAP after two years of delivering their solution to the market and help customers managing their e-waste and achieve zero.
  • Join the team as a Developer UI and apply now on SAP.iO.

More on this venture on https://www.ever-loop.io/

Feather by SAP

eather by SAP is an end-to-end recommerce solution that support brands and retailers that want to accelerate the shift from linear to circular business by taking ownership over their recommerce activities. Facilitate the in-house business processes, capture data, engage with the shopper, and own the end-to-end product life cycle.

  • We have a new kid on the block at SAP.iO Venture Studio! Feather by SAP finalized naming and branding and has a sparkling new brand identity: Check out their website and follow on LinkedIn.
  • The official investment announcement introduced the venture and its product’s benefits for SAP customers.
  • As part of SAP’s venture arm SAP.iO, Feather by SAP was also discussed as one of SAP’s sustainability software solutions. Read more news here.
  • Do you want to shape the future of a new venture? Feather by SAP is looking for a Frontend Developer, Full Stack Developer, Data Scientist, UX Designer, and Product Owner and they have numerous fellowship positions available. Find all open positions here.

More on this venture on https://www.featherbysap.io/

GreenToken by SAP

reenToken by SAP is a supply chain solution that offers companies new levels of transparency through reliable, blockchain-based information. Gain visibility into where raw materials came from and produce products with knowledge about where and how the materials were produced, even in complex, non-batch supply chains.

  • The venture looks back at a successful year with an exciting feature in SAP’s CEO opening keynote at SAPPHIRE NOW 2021, and more outings and media mentions, including:
    • Numerous LinkedIn articles and posts with over 70,500 views in total
    • Inspiring external speaking engagements
    • Features in external media articles in 2021, including Frontier Enterprise and Crypto News BTC
  • Congratulations are in order! The venture was nominated for Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award 2022 and is among the last 9 finalists. Check out the nomination video and announcement of the finalists.
  • GreenToken by SAP can also track hydrogen across supply chains to help businesses determine whether it is truly green. Need more on how on GreenToken by SAP’s supply chain solution can contribute to reducing current logistics challenges for the fuel of the future? Read more on the Wall Street Journal.

More on this venture on https://www.green-token.io/

Paid Promptly by SAP

aid Promptly by SAP drives cash into your business faster by automating receivable processes. Deliver a seamless, personalized, customer experience through Paid Pronto’s automated communication solution, beginning when an invoice is first released until payment is received.

  • Paid Promptly by SAP automates receivables to drive cash into businesses faster and sets a focus on customer correspondence. Listen to SAP’s Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic and get a first glimpse of the importance of their work in this video
  • The venture has a big influence on SAP’s cash collection. This video shows how SAP has optimized this process with Paid Promptly by SAP.
  • Interested in working at this venture? They are looking actively for a Senior Full Stack Engineer.

More on this venture on https://www.paidpromptly.io/

Source Agent by SAP

reat sourcing shouldn’t be a secret. Source Agent by SAP gives you the insights and strategies to address spend intelligently and wow your stakeholders. Identify sourcing opportunities by aligning your spend to current market intelligence. Receive a targeted sourcing strategy and supplier recommendations based on your data and requirements for each spend category. Quickly convert strategies and plans into eSourcing event prep and execution.

  • Want more entrepreneurial insights into founding and scaling a business? The ventures’ co-founder Travis Matter and Will Caseber talked about their personal journey with Source Agent by SAP and SAP.iO. Read about their experiences here.

More on this venture on https://www.sourceagent.io/

In Venture Studio, Funding Announcement, Blog, Global

Brilliant Hire by SAP Shines Bright in Venture Capital Round

By Jacqueline Prause, SAP Global Content Team

The future shines bright at Brilliant Hire by SAP, a dynamic startup that believes in giving job candidates the agency to bring their whole selves to the companies of their dreams. Fresh off a round of venture capital funding, the employee-led startup has been given an extended runway to execute on its ambitious product vision for the talent acquisition market.

The new round of Series A funding, awarded by principal investor SAP, comes as businesses are struggling to fill jobs left open as a result of the global phenomenon known as the Great Resignation. Hiring has never been more fast-paced and competitive, with recruiters bearing the brunt of the pressure to hire workers more efficiently and achieve new standards for quality of hire. To gain an edge in attracting qualified and diverse job candidates, businesses are increasingly integrating AI-powered solutions in their talent acquisition strategy.

SAP is stepping up to address this need on behalf of customers that run SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting with an infusion of venture funding for Brilliant Hire by SAP, an employee-led startup in the SAP.iO Venture Studio, an innovation hub that helps employees start up and scale with SAP. As an organically innovated solution, Brilliant Hire by SAP brings customers the advantage that it integrates with and is developed in parallel to SAP SuccessFactors.

Delivering the Candidate-First Experience

With the successful validation of Brilliant Hire’s three-year product roadmap, Jeanine LeFlore, General Manager, Brilliant Hire by SAP, says the team is already building out the solution with new features to address some of the toughest challenges in recruiting. For many recruiters, providing an amazing candidate experience is now top of the agenda.

“The industry is at a crucial juncture right now,” LeFlore says. “Delivering a powerful candidate-first experience is paramount to the success of any company in the talent acquisition landscape today. At Brilliant Hire, we put the candidate at the core of everything we do, and this in turn is what drives the highest value for our customers.”

LeFlore sees the next stage of development as a golden opportunity to leverage the momentum Brilliant Hire generated in 2021. The team plans to build out its vision for an intelligent data platform that enables recruiters to develop authentic relationships with both active and passive candidates, while using data to create personalized journeys for candidates. She says, “We are seeing tremendous traction in the recruiting space with our smart job matching AI/ML- powered technology, and we’ve just scratched the surface. With this new round of funding, we will double down on building the most compelling candidate-first experiences that connect recruiters with both active and passive candidates — to meet them in their environment, rather than making candidates have to search.”

Attracting More Qualified and Diverse Talent

For companies seeking to hire more qualified and diverse talent, Brilliant Hire by SAP helps increase the visitor-to-applicant ratio on careers sites and empowers diverse candidates to apply for roles best fit to their qualifications. In an example of how SAP runs SAP, the global software company runs Brilliant Hire on its career page, which is a vital hub for the one million-plus members of its talent communities.

“With Brilliant Hire by SAP, we are able to leverage AI to elevate the candidate experience and help candidates find the SAP job that is best fit to their skills,” says Elke Manjet, Global Head of Talent Attraction, SAP, and Member of the Executive Board of Advisors for Brilliant Hire. “We are seeing strong results from our use of Brilliant Hire’s smart job matching feature, both in terms of KPIs and qualitative feedback from candidates. Candidates really like that they can immediately see if they are a strong match for an open position or if they qualify for other positions they had not considered — so that the best-fit jobs find the candidates and not the other way around. We want people to have an amazing experience along their SAP journey from the start, and we do that by presenting the very best of SAP technology and innovation.”

Brilliant Hire by SAP offers a pilot of smart job matching for SAP SuccessFactors customers on SAP Store with self-sign-up for customers in the U.S., Germany, and India. The team recently presented smart job matching during its Be Brilliant! webinar series, available for on-demand viewing here.

What is Series A funding for an intrapreneurial venture?

The SAP.iO Venture Studio supports employee-led ventures from small, entrepreneurial teams. Although these ventures are housed within SAP, they experience all the same growth opportunities and challenges that are typical for startups, including technology innovation, market fit and funding.

“Series A funding for an intrapreneurial venture is not unlike funding for an external startup,” says Ram Jambunathan, senior vice president and general manager, SAP.iO Venture Studio. “Our approach is to ‘build fast and learn things.’ Investments are made based on achieving aggressive milestones aligned to product development and business execution. Each venture in the Venture Studio has an executive board that holds it accountable to meeting milestones. What makes the Venture Studio such an exciting opportunity for SAP employees is that we empower employees to drive and own the progress and success of their venture. The Venture Studio provides an incubator environment that offers these ventures runway to develop transformational solutions that will ‘future-proof’ SAP and its customers.”

From Pilot to Venture — The Story of Brilliant Hire by SAP

The story of Brilliant Hire by SAP began with a passion for creative problem-solving, when a small team of developers at SAP Labs India pitched the winning solution at an SAP internal hackathon in 2016. It was the start of a remarkable entrepreneurial journey for the team and their pilot project.

“The inspiration for Brilliant Hire came from our own hiring experience,” says Hemant Shetty, co-founder, Brilliant Hire by SAP. He recalls his astonishment as he was interviewing many candidates to scale the team. “There was a 90 percent rejection rate in the first round of interviews. We realized that finding the right candidate is like finding a needle in a haystack.”

The experience gave the team insight into the pitfalls of the hiring process and opened the way for the launch of Brilliant Hire by SAP, which found seed funding after a successful pitch to the SAP Innovation Center Network (ICN) in 2017. “Hiring is time consuming and it includes human unconscious bias. At Brilliant Hire, we wanted to solve this and create experiences for recruiters as well as candidates,” Shetty says.

In 2018, the team joined the SAP.io Venture Studio to begin working full time on Brilliant Hire by SAP as an independent venture. Brilliant Hire has grown from a three-person pilot to a dynamic team of twenty passionate experts spread across India and the U.S., who bring a diverse range of experience to solving challenges in recruiting. With its third round of funding, Brilliant Hire by SAP shines a bright light on the possibilities for AI to elevate the candidate experience in talent acquisition.

“We believe in creating a world where a candidate’s dream job finds them,” says Swetha PB, co-founder, Brilliant Hire by SAP. “We’ve focused on building an intelligent and inclusive platform that provides companies the ability to build authentic relationships with candidates they want to hire and candidates to own their successes.”

The future of talent looks bright indeed at Brilliant Hire by SAP!

About Brilliant Hire by SAP

Brilliant Hire by SAP is a dynamic startup in the HR Tech space with teams in San Francisco and Bangalore. It offers an AI-powered application that integrates with SAP SuccessFactors to deliver a more personalized and inclusive candidate experience on companies’ careers sites, and streamline processes for recruiters. Brilliant Hire by SAP is a venture within the SAP.iO Venture Studio.

Find out more on www.brillianthire.io

About SAP.iO Venture Studio

SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It invests in new ventures founded by small, entrepreneurial teams inside of SAP who are focused on building the future of enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio provides design, development, and sales support to help these ventures launch.

Find out more on www.sap.io/studio

In Blog, Global, Venture Studio

Dedication for progress: From employees to co-founders

A good idea is based on a combination of intuition, customer understanding and experience. Fortunately, Travis Mattern and Will Caseber have just that. While they’ve been long-time SAP employees, they have proven their entrepreneurial spirit and founded the employee-led venture Source Agent by SAP. With the upcoming Entrepreneurship Day on November 16, 2021 in the US, we thought it would be great to hear from them on their entrepreneurial journey firsthand.

Working as a senior director in the global sales operations team at SAP Ariba, Travis was not actively trying to become a founder. But this all changed when he came across an internal tool that classifies the suppliers of a company in a matter of hours. After encountering the tool, he realized its potential — especially if it could be given to customers directly. With this idea in mind, Travis entered his idea into the SAP.iO accelerator program for employees shortly before the deadline in 2020 and was accepted.

“To be honest, I really had no idea who the SAP.iO team was, what the SAP.iO Intrapreneurship program really was all about,” he said. “But when I was accepted, I learned a lot through that fast-track program and really ended up pivoting the idea through that process.”

Will Caseber joined Travis right before the accelerator program started. With more than 20 years of experience in procurement and sourcing, he was the perfect fit with the right expertise.

“When I last worked with supplier classification as a value advisor, the process was highly manual, and it would take the better part of probably three to four weeks to complete,” Will said. “Travis made the point using this automated process as an entry to sourcing-as-a-service; with the vision of delivering and engaging with customers in a different way, a digital way that aligns with SAP’s corporate strategy. That got my attention. And that’s something that evolved throughout the entire accelerator program.”

A long way to go

Going through the accelerator program with coaching, pitches and weeks of deep focus, Travis and Will received their first investment and founded the venture Source Agent by SAP. Since then, they have worked tirelessly on transforming sourcing into a web-based purchasing process that supports buyers in their procurement strategy. Being the two people in charge of a venture was not only exciting but also challenging. Travis explained that even with the first round of funding he was constantly thinking about the next steps and how to handle the complexity of his new role.

“We have to cover all elements of the business: budgeting, branding, going-to-market, building a product, finding customers, HR, and finance,” he said. “And I am still trying to figure out the best way to build the right culture within the team. I’m constantly challenged with where to spend my time best each day.”

Will said that his biggest challenge was the lack of tangibility of their product.

“In the early stages we were pitching a dream as opposed to an actual product and that’s a challenge. But we’re living the dream now and we’re getting some traction and recently had first customer traction,” he said.

First achievements

Even though the co-founders needed to focus on many issues simultaneously, there were moments in which both could feel their progress and enjoyed the payout of their hard work. Travis felt this acutely when Source Agent by SAP went live.

“For me, a key moment was when we went live with the website, created our LinkedIn company, and updated our personal LinkedIn profiles. This was our way to tell the rest of the world: Hey, we’re doing this!” Travis said.

Co-founder Will, on the other hand, associates this feeling with when the team was able to sign their first contract.

“We have been pitching the concept for quite a few weeks but you’re still unsure whether or not they’re going to make the decision,” he said. “When they came back with a signed contract it was now very real. We have a company that’s put their trust in us and now we have to deliver.”

Personal progression

After eight months of intense work, Travis and Will are now enthusiastic co-founders with a team of eight members and their first customers. It’s not only their job description that changed but also their way of working and of appreciating what they are doing.

“I’ve noticed I’m more inspired when I enjoy the work that I’m doing and I feel like it has more purpose. It has definitely been an awesome experience,” Travis said. “We’ve got the corporate safety net but we do have the independence to run it like our own business within SAP.”

Will thinks back to the moment he recognized the importance of the team: “It’s getting your ego out of the way, and kind of focusing on the team delivery aspect and realizing that you may not be able to convince every customer to convert and take on.”

Travis’s and Will’s journey was challenging and eventful, and it still is. By staying on track with the help of the SAP.iO Venture Studio they didn’t lose sight of their goal: To simplify and automate sourcing to help all businesses run better. And with their first customers today, their dream becomes more and more reality.

Great sourcing shouldn’t be a secret. Source Agent by SAP gives you the insights and strategies to address spend intelligently and wow your stakeholders. Identify sourcing opportunities by aligning your spend to current market intelligence. Receive a targeted sourcing strategy and supplier recommendations based on your data and requirements for each spend category. Quickly convert strategies and plans into eSourcing event prep and execution. More on this venture on www.sourceagent.io/

SAP.iO Venture Studio drives a new era of organic growth at SAP. It invests in new ventures founded by small, entrepreneurial teams inside of SAP who are focused on building the future of enterprise business processes. SAP.iO Venture Studio provides design, development, and sales support to help these ventures launch. Founding teams join the SAP.iO Venture Studio primarily through the SAP.iO Intrapreneurship and Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) programs. Find out more on www.sap.io/studio/

In Blog, Global, Venture Studio

How startups can help to create a positive impact on society and business

A good product is no longer enough to win a customer. Sustainability has become the new compass for companies worldwide and has gained enormous importance over the years.

“There is no doubt that sustainability is a key piece of the strategy of most successful companies moving forward, if not all of them,” said Gunther Rothermel, Head of SAP S/4HANA Sustainability.

This increased focus on sustainability has impacted both consumer behaviour and employer branding. According to a global report from The Economist Intelligence Unit and the World Wildlife Fund, global online searches for sustainable goods have increased by 71 percent increase over the last five years, triggering what’s been called an “eco-awakening.”

Not only that, but employees are placing more value on finding responsible and sustainable employers. The global pandemic has only accelerated this demand for sustainable actions, a sense of urgency for businesses to improve their sustainability credentials.

 

What customers want

For customers on their journey to build a more sustainable enterprise, there are three goals to keep in mind:

Software technology can help with these challenges by collecting, analyzing, and providing insights based on that data.

But no company, government, or country will solve the greatest challenges of our time alone. To succeed, companies need to collaborate across value chains, build alliances, and work together with governments and academia.

Global challenges require global solutions

The partnership between SAP and Accenture shows what is possible when two leading companies join forces to help their customers stay ahead of this global transformation.

Together, SAP and Accenture launched the “Sustainable Future” accelerator program with 13 selected startups from eight countries at the SAP.iO Foundries Berlin and Munich. The joint program aimed at helping early-stage B2B startups drive digital transformation and innovation in four target areas: carbon tracking and trading, resource efficiency, climate risk tracking and mitigation, and the circular economy.

“The ‘Sustainable Future’ cohort represents an innovation engine, meant to be leveraged by customers,” said Stephanie Guimbellot, Managing Director and Global SAP Sustainability Lead at Accenture, during a panel discussion at the closing Demo Day.

This collaboration is the latest in a series of initiatives from Accenture and SAP that help businesses support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and capture value from sustainability.

“We are entering the decade of action,” Guimbellot said, adding that today’s companies need to modify their business models to have a real impact on sustainability. “Technology will be an absolute must to reach the SDGs.”

This also means that startups are crucial in this process, across all industries.

“Sustainability will be an ecosystem where startups play an important role as they complement existing offerings with specialized technology,” she said.

How startups can help accelerate the sustainability journey

During the Demo Day, startups Astraea, Carbon Minds and Footprint had the chance to present their solutions and first projects with customers.

Astraea hails from Charlottesville and leverages unique big data from air quality sensors to geospatial analysis for real-time insights and workflow automation toward climate risk tracking and mitigation. In a first integration case with SAP’s Industry Cloud for Agriculture, Astraea will focus on providing satellite-derived data and indexes by field to enable seasonal planning on field level reflecting upcoming growing cycles.

Founded in Cologne, Carbons Minds provides integrated capabilities for holistic steering and reporting that helps companies measure, reduce, and offset CO2 emissions across their supply chain. The team is currently planning a project with a global pharmaceutical company to identify emission hotspots, find efficient mitigation options, and support the sustainable product development.

The third startup which showcased its superpower at the Demo Day was Berlin-based Footprint. Their software allows online shoppers to measure their feet with their smartphones and order the right shoe size, reducing returns, costs, and emissions. As part of their SAP.iO journey, Footprint is exploring collaboration opportunities with a German shoe and fashion retailer in SAP Commerce Cloud.

Check out the other ten startups that were part of the “Sustainable Future” program:

Stay tuned for more exciting customer projects and integrations coming out of this cohort. If you are a startup and want to participate in one of the upcoming SAP.iO programs, learn more and apply now!

About SAP.iO
To learn more about how SAP.iO is helping innovators start up and scale with SAP, please visit https://sap.io/.