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In Foundries, Article, Portfolio News

Predictive Trendspotting 2021: How To Genetically Sequence The Lifecycle Of A Trend

Hindsight may be 20/20, but with AI-fueled technology you just might be able to see into the future before anyone else. NWO is a U.S.-based startup piloting a predictive trends platform designed to capture the fast-changing voice of the consumer.

“We’re genetically sequencing the lifecycle of trends as they’re created and evolving. You can select any topic in world and immediately have a full report documenting how saturated a trend is in the minds of consumers globally, and by region,” said Sourav Goswami, co-founder of NWO. “It’s like talking to a human expert who can tell you when, where, and why a trend is growing, declining, or about to reach an inflection point with impact on your business.”

Among the recent early signals Goswami held up as proof of NWO’s prescience were reports predicting the resurgence of Bitcoin, the financial impact of locust swarm movements on sugar and cotton futures, and notably in the fall of 2020, a firestorm of online and offline behaviors around guns and tactical weaponry that constituted an “electoral powder keg” months before an angry mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.

The startup is working with beta customers in product innovation, marketing, and supply chain management at companies in the United States and Europe, and has plans to move into Asia and the Middle East. While initially targeting consumer brands, Goswami said NWO’s offering cuts across any industry, such as logistics and supply chain companies.

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In Foundries, Article, Tel Aviv, Energy & Natural Resources

Pexapark is Changing the Game in the Renewable PPA World

We sat down with Pexapark’s Co-Founder and CEO, Michael Waldner! Pexapark provides the operating system for post-subsidy renewable energy sales. In this episode of energenius, Michael shares the latest trends in the PPA landscape, talks about the company values driving Pexapark to success, and discusses how Pexapark will help SAP’s utilities customers more efficiently manage their PPA contracts.

Customer Success

“Transitioning from subsidised to post subsidised markets opens up new risks. Companies now need to access new capabilities for energy risk management. We helped a large company and major investor in renewable energy with 2,000 MW installed capacity across different European markets. First we educated them on these new risks, structured and closed PPA agreements for them and followed up with our software solutions to help transform their organization to build up their risk management capabilities.”

Standing Out from the Competition

“The big difference is you no longer need to rely on an RFQ methodology where the price can become out of date by the time you are able to close. With our product, you can stay up-to-date every day with what the price should be for PPAs. You can follow pricing during your negotiations and spot deviations in pricing methodologies You get the same market pricing intelligence as utilities.”

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In Foundries, Article, Tel Aviv

NET2GRID is Drastically Increasing Customer Engagement and Improving Energy Consumption Behaviors

We chatted with NET2GRID’s Founder and CEO, Bert Lutje Berenbroek! NET2GRID delivers a platform for utilities to gain powerful energy insights and run value-added services using machine learning algorithms on smart meter data. In this episode, Bert shares how NET2GRID has helped utilities see a 3,000% increase in engagement levels with their prosumers, discusses NET2GRID’s holistic model of the AMI service leading up to real-time hardware for premium insights and value add services, and talks about how NET2GRID’s cost-efficient and real-time data aggregation helps SAP utilities customers spotlight their prosumers, EV owners and gain greater consumer insights in order to enrich customer profiles for targeted marketing purposes.

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In Foundries, Article, Tel Aviv

Using IoT to Uncover Inefficiencies in the Utilities Industry With Lemonbeat

We sat down with Lemonbeat’s Co-Founder and CEO, Oliver van der Mond! Lemonbeat offers a scalable end-to-end Internet of Things–enabling solution, building a seamless experience journey from device to cloud. In this episode of energenius, Oliver shares how Lemonbeat helps utilities smarten and scale their infrastructure with IoT, talks about how energy inefficiencies identified by Lemonbeat can help clients save 20–30% in energy-use, and discusses how Lemonbeat’s ability to smartly gather data in the field complements SAP’s existing data management services for utilities.

Customer Success

“With the example of managing a smart boiler room in one’s home, Lemonbeat can help you easily save 20–30% of the primary energy, whether it be gas, oil, etc., without the loss of any convenience.”

Standing Out from the Competition

“We have built Lemonbeat in a way that it can really grow from a very small system to a very large system in a seamless way. IoT makes it possible to uncover inefficiencies. But to uncover them, you need to make those solutions cost-efficient and scalable. With Lemonbeat, you can uncover the inefficiencies and remotely adjust them.”

Working With SAP

“What we are offering is quite complementary to what SAP is offering. It’s a very good fit- we have almost no overlap, so technically speaking, there is an interface where we are meeting. We are taking care of whatever happens in the field so that we get the data, and SAP can take care of what is actually done with the data.”

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In Foundries, Article, Tel Aviv

How Future Grid is Helping to Create a More Sustainable Reality

We sat down (on Zoom) with Future Grid’s Co-Founder & CEO, Chris Law! Future Grid enables the renewable grid of the future to deliver safe and reliable electricity. In this episode of energenius, Chris shares about the direct impact Future Grid makes on customer safety as well as its bigger-picture impact on a sustainable future, talks about how Future Grid enriches SAP data to help utilities customers turn smart meter data into improved asset management and grid reliability, and discussed Future Grid’s evolution from a small consulting business to a leading software company.

Customer Success

“One client had incidents on their network where customers were shocked and injured by faults with electricity in their homes. They worked with Future Grid to improve reliability and safety for customers, proactively detecting these incidents using smart meter data, often before the customer was aware that the issue was happening.”

Standing Out from the Competition

“We realized that there is a lot of talk about the customer generating their own electricity, but there was little acknowledgement or understanding of the adverse impact it was having on the energy ecosystem, particularly in terms of polls and wires. Future Grid uses data so that utilities can install more renewable energy into the grid and manage these new technologies and ecosystem players in a sustainable way.”

Working With SAP

“What SAP does for our customers is help specifically with asset management and ERP. Future Grid is using a new kind of data to enrich that, so utilities can better manage the renewable transition and its safety. The outputs of what we produce goes into SAP systems, so we can leverage solutions to create better outcomes for customers on a global scale.”

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In Foundries, Article, Tel Aviv

Efficiently Manage & Optimize Distributed Energy Resources with FSIGHT

We chatted with FSIGHT’s CEO, Emek Sadot! FSIGHT offers state-of-the-art artificial intelligence software solutions that allow the energy service provider to predict, optimize and trade energy on behalf of the end user. In this episode, Emek shares FSIGHT’s critical role in effectively managing distributed energy, explains the changes that occurred resulting in end-users actively participating in the energy transition, and discusses how FSIGHT’s solution brings value to SAP customers and contributes to the greater good and a more sustainable reality.

Customer Success

“We just ran a successful pilot with a very large European utilities company, and we improved their forecasting efficiency and results by 2x. We are in the process of closing a deal with them, and will actively pursue other utilities based on this success story.”

Standing Out from the Competition

“We realized that one crucial component is missing in the energy transition: how to manage these distributed energy resources in order to make the grid sustainable and allow the energy reseller and the end-user to save money and be greener. FSIGHT addresses the void of how you manage and optimize these resources across the board for the benefit of the end-user, the benefit of the utility, and the benefit for all stakeholders.”

Working With SAP

“FSIGHT brings innovation, creates value, and quickly seizes new market opportunities through our technologies in artificial intelligence and machine learning. In order to scale and replicate our solution, we need the right partners. SAP brings a global presence and large customer base, and we find a spark in SAP’s people, its agenda, and in the music.”

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In Article, Tel Aviv, Portfolio News, Foundries

In Their Own Words: The 7 Startups Leading the Energy Transformation to a More Sustainable Future

With forty five of the fifty top utilities companies in the world running SAP solutions, SAP is a leading force in helping utilities light the way as the world transitions to a more sustainable, renewable, and digital energy reality. Through SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv’s latest accelerator program, SAP.iO along with SAP Utilities business unit has been working closely with seven selected startups to create new integrations and joint offerings for our utilities clients.

Here is your chance to meet the seven startups and learn about their customer successes, how they stand out from the competition, and the value they bring to SAP’s utilities clients.

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In Foundries, Article, Tel Aviv, COVID-19

AI Plus IoT Are Among The Most Important Ingredients In Pandemic Vaccine Cold-Chain

The combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) technology may be the biggest disruption to the industrial refrigeration industry since the invention of the first commercial ice-making machine two centuries ago.  

In this second year of a modern pandemic, startup Youtiligent has developed an AIoT-based technology to help companies keep vaccines cold across complex distribution supply chains. Moving far beyond sensor-based temperature monitoring, Youtiligent’s promise is to securely capture real-time electric power anomalies in onsite commercial refrigerators, allowing distributors to take action before vaccine spoilage.

“Sensors that capture when a product’s temperature has decreased below the acceptable degree range are not effective when it comes to distributing something like the coronavirus vaccine,” said Avichai Belitsky, co-founder of Youtiligent. “We combined AI with IoT technology to deliver real-time alerts for cost-effective predictive and preventive maintenance. Organizations can act faster in making data-driven business decisions based on what’s happening in real-time, such as sending in a repair technician, before it’s too late.”

EKG for cooling appliances

Based in Israel, Youtiligent is piloting its offering with healthcare organizations in that country. Belitsky also expected high interest from refrigeration manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies, as well as medical and other institutions with clinics, pharmacies, and research labs, such as hospitals and universities. The startup continues to serve customers in its original target markets that include the food and beverage and retail industries.

“This is what we call ‘EKG for appliances,’ tracking electric current across compressors, engines, and pumps that power any cooling machine, whether it’s making ice cream to be sold the next week, or cooling expensive chemicals that researchers safely store and use over many years,” said Belitsky. “Every machine action has a unique fingerprint, and being able to track each one with algorithms yields valuable, actionable insights.”

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In Foundries, Article, COVID-19

SAP Commerce Cloud Dresses up Digital Storefronts

COVID-19 has caused disruption across the global economy, forcing companies to alter tried-and-true business processes and meet customers where they are. 

With in-person interactions no longer the default option, companies are investing in digital commerce sites for business and consumer transactions.

SAP Commerce Cloud is aiming to make it easier for businesses to open these digital storefronts and customer engagement platforms to support B2B, B2C and direct-to-consumer sites all on a single platform, said Paula Hansen, senior vice president and chief revenue officer for SAP Customer Experience.

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In Foundries, Article, Portfolio News

AI for Leaders: A Look at SAP.iO Grad Cultivate’s Leadership AI Coaching

Cultivate was initially founded through Samsung NEXT’s ‘Entrepreneur in Residence’ accelerator program. In 2019, SAP’s early-stage venture arm, SAP.iO, participated in the AI company’s Series A funding where it raised $8 million to grow its go-to-market team and product offerings. Since then, Cultivate has accumulated a total of $10 million in venture capital and partnered with multiple leading academic institutions to further its mission of a digital leadership platform.

Leveraging AI for Leaders and the New Digital Workforce

Cultivate was founded with the vision of empowering next-generation leaders through an AI-based leadership development platform that supports them in improving their teams’ employee experience. The platform uses the latest techniques in Machine Learning (ML) and Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to derive social insights from digital channels to help leaders realise their full potential.

According to Joe Freed, co-founder and CEO of Cultivate, the company aims to address a leadership development gap to help managers self-evaluate their digital communications with insights on their own behaviours. He comments:

“Managers are overloaded with email and chat, but they still have to be managers of people. When it comes to things like well-being, burnout, inclusion, and engagement, a lot of how you can influence your team can be through digital communication. But we don’t have a lot of tools to help us with this.”

Enterprise leaders who opt-in to the AI coaching platform get access to a digital coach that scans and analyses the words and the metadata collected from various digital communication channels such as Office 365, Google Suite, Teams and Slack. The Cultivate AI for leaders then delivers personalised, continuous and easy-to-execute actionable leadership insights to managers themselves, helping them strengthen their workplace relationships and ultimately improve the employee experience.

According to Cultivate, a manager using the digital leadership coaching platform can also give feedback to the Cultivate AI to adjust the feedbacks being generated based on the context of their relationships with their team members.

Companies using the Cultivate AI for leaders include:

  • SAP
  • Qualtrics, an SAP-owned company and leader in XM technology
  • McKesson Corporation, a global leader in pharmaceuticals and health information technology
  • BASF, the largest chemical producer in the world
  • PwC, considered one of the Big Four accounting firms
  • SamsungNEXT, a ventures and innovation group within Samsung

At SAP, the Cultivate platform was deployed at an initial small pilot. After confirming that the AI’s feedbacks were highly beneficial, the SAP team did a larger roll-out to approximately 250 sales managers, where 79% of those eligible to participate chose to do so.

Today, SAP has deployed Cultivate to over 500 managers. The German multinational company reports that 96% of managers have remained engaged with Cultivate since the initial roll-out.

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In Paris, Foundries, Article

SAP.iO recherche des startups AgTech & GreenTech pour ses deux nouveaux programmes d’accélération

SAP.iO Foundry Paris lance un nouvel appel à candidatures pour son programme d’accélération de startups orientées agri-business. Cette 6ème promotion de l’accélérateur de startups de SAP retiendra 6 à 10 pépites tech et Agtech pour son programme de 10 semaines débutant en avril 2021. Les startups françaises mais aussi européennes peuvent candidater dès aujourd’hui jusqu’au 31 janvier 2021. Un autre appel à candidature est ouvert aux startups Greentech Françaises pour ses programmes de Berlin et Munich.

Lire la suite…

In Fund, Foundries, Article, Global, Press Release, Venture Studio

SAP Among the World’s Top 25 Startup-Friendly Companies and Winner of Corporate Startup Accelerator Award

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced it has been recognized with a Corporate Startup Stars Award as one of the Top 25 most active companies to encourage open innovation with startups.

SAP also received a Corporate Startup Accelerator Award for its acceleration efforts and identifying worldwide best practices in corporate-startup collaboration. The announcement was made at the digital award ceremony hosted by open innovation advisory firm Mind the Bridge and the International Chamber of Commerce, on December 15.

Engaging with early stage startups is an important aspect of SAP’s holistic open innovation approach to remain agile and resilient in today’s global marketplace. This includes dedicated programs within SAP’s early stage venture arm SAP.iO to scout and accelerate new ideas and talent inside and outside of the company.

“At SAP, we know that we can mutually benefit from outside-in perspectives to inspire innovation and drive business impact for our customers,” said Juergen Mueller, chief technology officer and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. “Since 2017, we have helped scale more than 270 promising startups across all lines of business and industries in nine locations across the globe. Providing them with the access and resources they need to build on SAP solutions complements our portfolio and internal innovation efforts, which enables our customers to gain even more value from their SAP investments.”

For the fifth year, startups have been asked to nominate the companies that are most active and friendly in working with small businesses. Started in 2016 under the European Commission’s Startup Europe Partnership initiative, the Corporate Startup Stars Awards have been scaled to include corporations and startups worldwide through the partnership between Mind the Bridge and the International Chamber of Commerce.

“SAP has consistently proven to be one of the most startup-friendly corporations worldwide by engaging with startups in multiple modes, ranging from acceleration and partnerships to investments and acquisitions,” said Alberto Onetti, chairman, Mind the Bridge. “We appreciate the approach SAP.iO has taken and its recent evolution. The combination of startup and employee-driven innovation and the renewed focus on scaling companies makes SAP.iO a benchmark globally for rethinking and optimizing the corporate accelerator model.”

To learn more about how SAP is helping innovators inside and outside of SAP build products, find customers and change industries, please visit SAP.iO.

Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @SAPNews.

Media Contact:
Lesa Beber, +1 (650) 390-1629, lesa.beber@sap.com, ET
SAP Press Room; press@sap.com

In Article, Foundries

Moments of Opportunity and Innovation in the Consumer Products Industry

With the support of the latest startup innovations, consumer products companies are thriving and exceeding consumer expectations in moments of opportunity, now detailed in a new report by SAP.

The consumer products industry has had to move quickly to respond to the various implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. The digital transformation of all industries has been accelerated due to challenges such as radical demand shifts, supply chain reconfiguration, seasonal workforce interruptions, and the repurposing of manufacturing capacity.

The cascade of new trends from within the consumer products industry, coupled with the need to rethink consumer engagement, strengthens the need for consumer products companies to cultivate innovation coming from startups and new technologies.

New Wave in Consumer Products

Five key trends are fueling a new wave of innovation in the consumer products industry.

  1. There has been an increase in venture capital funding for consumer products companies, where disruptive companies are entering the market at a rapid pace, leading established players to question old operating models.
  2. More and more consumers – specifically Millennials and Generation Z – are emphasizing the importance of reducing the environmental impact of their consumption habits and are willing to pay more for organic and all-natural products.
  3. There has been a shift in which types of companies are dominating the market. Whereas previous industry leaders were companies with the most resources and highest manufacturing capacity, today the companies with the most innovative ideas and talent are entering and leading the market at an unprecedented pace.
  4. There has been a sharp decline in the cost of resources in various categories, eliminating the cost-based barriers to market entry and allowing companies to scale like never before.
  5. Consumer products companies no longer think in terms of “moments of truth,” where there is a linear path to purchase with well-defined touch points to influence a purchase. Rather, in order to succeed, consumer products companies need to meet consumers in moments of opportunity, in which they can orchestrate an ecosystem to deliver personalized and unique experiences in service of achieving an outcome.

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In Foundries, Article, Portfolio News, Consumer Industries

Video-Powered Virtual Storefronts Fuel Next E-Commerce Boom

According to Gartner researchers, live commerce is one of the hottest digital selling trends as retailers and even business-to-business (B2B) companies engage customers with personalized sales through streaming video.

To be clear, these are not yesterday’s social brand ambassadors. TVPage has pioneered this latest trend, offering an artificial intelligence (AI)-based cloud platform that brings together store associates, approved influencers, and products for the most dynamic online e-commerce machine to date.

“We are at the forefront of social e-commerce, using video to put virtual yet personalized salespeople directly in the online store,” said Allon Caidar, co-founder and CEO at TVPage. “It’s a full-cycle marketing engine for customer engagement and online shopping, turning companies into their own social media destination that pops up as people search for products.”

Bustling Virtual Storefronts

Large retailers and other companies worldwide are using TVPage to replicate the kind of expert selling consumers crave. For example, when a retailer signs up, it gains a virtual storefront for its own sales associates – as well as independent influencers – all of whom serve as social brand ambassadors. Using a mobile app or web browser, these ambassadors keep consumers engaged by uploading videos, photos, and other information about products on the retailer’s website. They use social media to share their content, answer customer questions, and invite interested consumers to special online events.

“Consumers can chat with social brand ambassadors anytime to find out if a product comes in a different color or size,” Caidar said. “Ambassadors might decide to schedule beauty makeovers based on the questions they’ve received or spotlight gaming releases that reflect breaking trends. Customers can purchase products directly from their videos.”

Companies can set and monitor social ambassador metrics from one dashboard, paying their own employees based on individual performance goals. TVPage also helps its customers find and manage independent influencers, including sourcing and paying freelance social ambassadors.

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In Foundries, Article

How Drones and Robotics Revolutionize Building Inspections

nderneath the gleaming surface of modern megacities is an archaic patchwork of antiquated building inspection processes long overdue for a 21st century makeover. Meet H3 Dynamics, a cloud-based inspection services platform that is using drones and ground robots as the eyes and ears of engineers currently grounded by the pandemic and long hampered by last-century norms.

“By automating and digitizing visual inspection processes, we’re creating an accessible layer of information on structures and buildings in any city or corporate location,” said Taras Wankewycz, founder and CEO of H3 Dynamics. “Organizations can track the physical conditions of urban and remote facilities with a level of safety, efficiency, and accuracy not possible before.”

Perfecting the Human Plus Machine Equation

Headquartered in Singapore, H3 Dynamics customers include companies and government agencies worldwide across a long list of sectors such as smart cities, real estate, maritime, oil and gas, utilities, renewable energy, and mining. Customers might be private equity firms that own facilities, insurance companies, site operators, safety inspection and certification organizations, or regulators involved in legislating safety mandates. H3 Dynamics also has clients that resell its digitized visual monitoring services to their own customers.

What customers have in common are hard-to-reach sites, from the tallest skyscrapers to remote industrial outposts that defy the most intrepid human being’s effort to scale. But this is not a story about machines replacing people.

Drones and ground robots, as well as people, can capture information from buildings with video and other camera images, bringing this data into the H3 Dynamics platform. The system uses technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D modeling to create an interactive map that displays defects on the scanned structure surfaces, classifying potential risks, whether aesthetic anomalies or unsafe areas that require repair. Civil engineers or other recognized industry experts review and validate the automated findings. Customers can generate a written report that details safety risks. In addition, the company has created shelter systems where drones and other robots can get batteries recharged and upload data to the H3 Dynamics cloud.

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