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In Berlin, HR & People Engagement

Estonian startup Teamscope gets €1.3 million boost to take executive hiring to new heights

Founded in 2015, Teamscope has just raised €1.3 million from Estonian and foreign investors as a convertible loan to expand its executive hiring SaaS platform. The Estonian-born company has headquarters in London.

On a mission to help leaders develop teams and make better hiring decisions, the Teamscope platform organises the recruitment process so that decisions can be made based on data – reducing the issues of bias and reducing the risk of hiring errors.

Tech in the recruitment sector has been booming in the past months and Teamscope is one of the latest to enter the arena bringing data-based capabilities to recruitment decisions. The Teamscope platform takes into account the suitability of the candidates for the team in terms of their values, competencies and personality traits.

Co-founder and chairman of the board Tõnis Arro said: “I have been a headhunter for decades and have increasingly found that hiring decisions are the worst kind of management decisions. Hiring is based on gut feeling, and if the candidate is also individually strong, his / her suitability for the team is not assessed. And that’s the main reason for failed hiring decisions…Teamscope transforms a standard, intuitive hiring decision into a data-driven process, helping to reduce hiring risks. With Teamscope, every executive can become a professional recruiter.”

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In Berlin, Tel Aviv, Portfolio News, Business Technology Platform

Pulkit Jaiswal and Imogen Low from nwo.ai named to Forbes 30 Under 30 2022

Using machine learning and human metadata to identify global shifts early and throughout the trend lifecycle, nwo.ai enables corporations and governments to get insights on sectors ranging from consumer products to global war. Low, a Westpac Bank Trust Scholar, ran SAP’s Machine Learning efforts in APAC at age 17. Jaiswal, a drone pioneer and serial entrepreneur, developed geopolitical trading signals for hedge funds. The company has $3.5 million in seed funding.

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In Munich, CRM & Customer Experience, Berlin

Circular Economy Becomes Reality For Retailers Thanks To This French Startup

Need a new outfit for a party, a wedding, or an awards ceremony? Want something special to perk up a grey day? Don’t buy it – rent it. By doing so, you’ll be part of a circular economy revolution to use more and own less.

Imagine having a wardrobe full of clothes you only wear once or twice – but instead of discarding them in landfill, you just return them to the brand you got them from and rent a whole new set for the season ahead.

Imagine renting just about everything else you only use once in a while – equipment for camping, sports or home workouts, tableware for a Christmas bash, musical instruments and clothes your kids will soon abandon or outgrow anyway, medical devices, tools, luggage for your next world tour – you name it, if it’s not perishable, rent it.

A Circular Vision

That’s the vision of Lizee, a French startup providing eCommerce and logistics software as a service. They believe that the manufacturing of goods will be cut in half during the next 25 years.

“Together with our supply chain partners, we offer a turnkey solution for brands and retailers that want to quickly transition into the circular economy by renting and reselling their products,” said Tanguy Frécon, the company’s co-founder and chairman. “Brands are realizing that it makes business sense to produce fewer goods but make them more robust so they last longer. Producing for reuse derives a different type of margin. The products become the resources.”

Lizee’s offering comes just in time as retailers are facing groundbreaking regulations in France that forbid the destruction of clothing, cosmetics, electrical items, and other goods that haven’t been sold. The ban is part of a wide-ranging anti-waste law passed by the French parliament last year.

Tanguy Frécon is convinced sustainability and profitability go hand in hand. The rent and resell business model is a new channel for brands to interact with their existing customers and reach new target audiences.

“With these new circular business models brands and retailers can deliver their sustainable transformation, clear inventory without discounting, target new consumers, and boost margins,” said Frécon.

A Skyrocketing Business Model

The market is massive. Back in 2019, Tanguy was inspired by McKinsey’s State of Fashion Report which named end of ownership as one of the key consumer shifts retailers should prepare for. The report stated that “the lifespan of fashion products is being stretched as pre-owned, refurbished, repaired, and rental business models continue to evolve and consumers have demonstrated an appetite to shift away from traditional ownership to newer ways in which to access product.”

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In Berlin, Supply Chain Management

Software and Robotics startup arculus acquired by Logistics Giant Jungheinrich AG

On November 10, 2021, arculus, a Munich-based startup specializing in autonomous mobile robots, was acquired by major automation and intralogistics provider Jungheinrich AG for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in Ingolstadt in 2016 by Dr. Fabian Rusitschka and now with headquarters in Munich, German arculus is revolutionizing traditional production line manufacturing as the world’s first software and robotics company to offer a complete modular production platform, from concept to operations.

Almost every company that sells a physical product has a production line, though these have hardly changed since Henry Ford developed the techniques of mass production in 1926. Using AI-powered software and autonomous mobile robots, arculus transforms manufacturers’ one-dimensional assembly lines into scalable, flexible assembly modules. Planning, simulation, operation, and optimization can all take place within this one software system. The platform’s core functions include digital route planning based on real-time traffic data and anticipatory route planning to prevent congestion.

Since its inception in 2016 arculus has grown from strength to strength. After receiving Series A funding amounting to €16 million in May 2020, its acquisition by Jungheinrich a little over a year later is a clear marker of the startup’s success. Having conducted a successful pilot project in Supermarket 2.0 with Aldi Ingolstadt, arculus has a proven track record in AMR (associated management resources) and smart logistics.

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In Berlin, Podcast, Munich, CRM & Customer Experience

Why Renting Is The New Buying – Industry Insights by SAP

In this episode, Tanguy Frécon, Co-Founder & Chairman at Lizee shares how Lizee helps brands and retailers reach both their growth and sustainability goals by expanding their rental business and extending the use of their products.

Consumers want to engage with brands that are sustainable — but there can be no sustainability without profitability. Lizee, one of the startups in the SAP.io Sustainable Futures program, enables brands to produce fewer, more durable, more sustainable goods and reach even more customers without sacrificing revenue. Tanguy Frécon, Co-Founder & Chairman at Lizee, speaks with host Tom Raftery about the real and potential benefits to retailers as they shift from a linear to circular retail economy.

Catch the episode here…

In Berlin, Tel Aviv, Business Technology Platform

SAP Startup Spotlight: NWO.ai

SAP invests in a lot of promising startups, and it’s sometimes hard to keep track of all of them. E-3 Magazine has selected the most interesting companies to showcase in our SAP Startup Spotlight Series. In this article, we will take a look at NWO.ai. In this interview, co-founder and co-CEO Pulkit Jaiswal talks about what NWO.ai has to offer, how it is connected to SAP, and what’s next for the startup.

E-3 Magazine: Why did you start NWO.ai?

Pulkit Jaiswal: Prior to beginning my journey with NWO.ai, I was an entrepreneur in the drone industry. During this time, I understood the power of providing actionable insights as-a-service to large enterprises, powered by data that was previously untapped. Shortly after that, I started building signals that predicted geopolitical volatility for trading purposes, recognizing how global relations and natural disasters could disrupt standard patterns. After achieving a profitable run, I realized the asymmetry in data that exists between hedge funds and large companies – hedge funds often know more about specific industries than companies within them. Essentially, NWO.ai was born out of the realization that I could provide corporations with the same level of access to data and reveal actionable insights.

How could your solution potentially help customers navigate the COVID-19 pandemic?

Jaiswal: As we speak, global supply chains are crumbling while the cost of raw materials for most consumer goods has skyrocketed, in part due to rising inflation and a parabolic adoption of e-commerce. Moreover, geopolitical instability has reached an all-time high, and living with uncertainty is the new normal for businesses today. COVID-19 has created a new social, political, and economic world order – one that is increasingly driven by cultural narratives and online discourse. In fact, the online narrative is single-handedly driving demand for certain consumer goods and creating completely new product categories at an exponential pace. NWO.ai’s natural language processing engine enables clients to surface the fears, motivations, and demand drivers underlying various signals, providing them with unprecedented access to the Why behind a narrative. Whether it’s figuring out which new product categories are about to break out or finding anomalous interest in demand for certain products, NWO.ai has successfully helped clients stay ahead of the curve, enabling proactive rather than reactive decision-making processes.

How are you connected to SAP?

Jaiswal: We are thrilled that NWO.ai has premiered as one of the first data providers to join the SAP data marketplace. This new feature, part of the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, enables businesses and IT users to directly consume partner data offerings that are available on SAP Store. We also have former SAP executives at the helm of our company: our COO, Miroslav Dimitrov, directed the SAP.io Foundry in Berlin, and our CTO, Imogen Low, led machine learning efforts for SAP in Singapore.

How has SAP.io’s involvement impacted your journey?

Jaiswal: Besides our collaboration with SAP DWC, we are also lucky to have graduated from SAP.io’s Berlin Foundry Program. As part of the program, we had the chance to interact with and learn from various industry experts, stakeholders, and potential customers, which in turn helped us achieve a product-market fit.

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In Tel Aviv, Business Technology Platform, Berlin

NWO.ai Partners with SAP to Support the Consumer Goods Industry

NWO.ai is offering its Consumer Intelligence solution on the data marketplace for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, enabling the tracking of cultural and consumer behavior shifts globally.

The data marketplace is a new feature of the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud solution which enables businesses and IT users to directly consume partner data offerings that are available on SAP Store.

NWO.ai provides clients with a significant competitive advantage and helps them stay close to their customers, according to the vendor.

Specifically, consumer product companies can now leverage Consumer Intelligence from NWO.ai to:

  • Analyze and identify potential demand growth drivers
  • Track global cultural shifts by analyzing billions of data points in under 60 seconds
  • Understand consumer sentiment and the leading indicators behind it
  • Deep dive on microtrends associated with products and categories
  • Identify the influential voices and brands that drive the consumer narrative

As a partner in the SAP PartnerEdge program, NWO.ai is empowered to build, market, and sell software applications that supplement and build on SAP software and technology.

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In Berlin, New York, CRM & Customer Experience, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

How Startups Are Monetizing the Booming Food Waste Business

Tech platforms Misfits Market, Too Good to Go and Goodr connect food companies with opportunities to divert their waste and improve their bottom lines at the same time.

Why it matters:

  • Nearly one-fourth of the food produced in the U.S. ends up going to waste, which also results in wasted resources spent by businesses to produce and transport food items.
  • Reducing food waste represents a tremendous opportunity for helping people in need and protecting the environment, while boosting food companies’ own profitability and sustainability.
  • Technology platforms such as Misfits Market, Too Good to Go and Goodr are successfully scaling up their operations as they tackle this challenge from different angles, seeking to provide benefits to both food businesses and consumers.

A handful of technology startups are seeking to tackle the challenge of reducing food waste at the grower, retailer, restaurant and consumer levels by matching surpluses with willing buyers.

Misfits Market, Too Good to Go and Goodr are leaning into the booming food waste management business, which generates an estimated $34.22 billion in global sales, and is on track to expand at a 5.4% compound annual growth rate over the next few years, according to Grand View Research.

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In Berlin, Tel Aviv, Business Technology Platform

Can Artificial Intelligence Take The Guesswork Out Of The Customer Journey?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is shedding light on one of the most examined yet least understood experiences of modern life: the customer journey. From shopping malls and sports arenas, to train stations and city streets, C2RO is an AI-powered video analytics platform that captures anonymized data about people’s movement so organizations can improve the customer experience.

“We analyze human behaviour in physical spaces, and transfer it into actionable data,” said Tim Heaney, vice president of sales at C2RO. “With a fact-based understanding of the amount of people coming into a space, how they move through it with whom, where they linger, and what they touch and eventually purchase, organizations can manage physical environments more efficiently to improve the customer experience and business results.”

Real-time data eases commuter experience

A transportation organization used data from C2RO to improve subway train and bus terminal planning.

“Based on the number of people boarding and leaving trains at certain times and days, as well as which direction they’re headed at terminals, transportation managers could alleviate traffic crunches,” said Heaney. “They could reverse escalator directions to help people more easily exit or enter terminals. Aligning vehicle dispatches to actual passenger traffic flows reduced wasted trips. It also means fewer people waiting in the cold or forced to stand in crowded cars and buses.”

Real-time data is particularly valuable to manage other operations such as shopping malls and entertainment venues during peak usage times like rush hour, holiday shopping, or performances. Companies can also use historical data for future planning.

Heaney added that monitoring in-person occupancy levels has helped organizations meet social distancing mandates during the pandemic.

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In Berlin, Tel Aviv, Business Technology Platform

Anticipate & Track Global Cultural Shifts with NWO.ai | Now available on SAP Store

SAP Data Intelligence, SAP Analytics Cloud, and SAP Business Technology Platform customers can now turn unstructured data into insight with NWO.ai‘s platform that aggregates, analyzes, and produces actionable reports on human-generated data.

Check out Consumer Intelligence by NWO.ai on SAP Store 

The Industry Problem

As consumer behavior and habits change abruptly (as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic), companies cannot keep up and make sense of the vast amount of external data created every single day.

NWO.ai’s Solution

NWO.ai uses diverse data sets and views them in context to define trends as they emerge and evolve in relative terms. NWO.ai’s platform shows how a product, company, trend, or concept increases/decreases in its saturation within a global context with regards to mindshare, using news, social commentary, and searches.

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In Berlin, Tel Aviv, ERP & Finance

How CPG Brands Keep Up with Retail’s Fastest-Moving Consumer Demands

Nobody understands the frustration of consumers who can’t find the products they’re looking for more than the experts at Teamcore, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based startup with operations in Latin America and the United States. Teamcore’s cloud-based software platform uses machine learning to power intelligent workflow automation that tells consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and retailers why products aren’t selling and what they can do about it fast.

“We help CPG companies and retailers make sure products are available when their customers are ready to buy,” said Sergio Della Maggiora, founder and CEO of Teamcore. “Whether someone is shopping online or in a physical store, our retail execution platform based on intelligent workflows helps connect data across the supply chain – from warehouse to shelf, virtually or in-store – so companies don’t miss out on sales opportunities.”

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In Berlin, Featured, Public Services, Announcements

SAP.iO Foundry Berlin Launches Health Sciences Startup Program

October 5, 2021 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) launched a virtual startup program focused on health sciences at SAP.iO Foundry Berlin. The eight international startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners and customers to join the program.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further demonstrated that a digitalized patient journey and efficient clinical trials are imperative to a good health system. With this program, SAP.iO aims to increase the visibility and influence of startups who have made improvement in these areas their mission.

“Our customers depend upon SAP and our ecosystem to provide them with access to the best innovations for their businesses, delivered quickly, in order to provide real, tangible benefits”, said Matthew Laukaitis, Global General Manager, Consumer Industries at SAP. “The SAP.iO program helps our customers understand each startup’s niche innovation and use cases that are consistent with their data and business strategy. We are enthusiastic about working with each of the selected health sciences startups together with our customers, as the pace and impact of these innovations is far-reaching all across these industries.”

Over the next 12 weeks, the startups will have access to curated mentorship from SAP executives, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world.

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

Life Science Track

  • Chekkit provides a patented consumer intelligence, engagement and loyalty software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to help medicine and pharma companies fight illicit traders and fake medicines.
  • Endeavor is a global consulting and specialty products firm with a focus on manufacturing, supply chain and logistics solutions in SAP and other IT platforms.
  • GenLots provides a SaaS solution that uses machine learning to optimize supply chain processes including order plans, inventory, transactions and prices.
  • Tag-N-Trac offers a proprietary ultra-thin smart label technology linked to a hardware-enabled SaaS/analytics platform that provides real-time supply chain visibility and traceability.

Healthcare Track

  • Laura offers a machine learning-based clinical decision support system and an omnichannel platform to simplify access to medical services and improve the overall patient journey.
  • Oribta focuses on conversational AI for healthcare and life science. Their virtual assistants and conversational platform help with digital front door applications, remote patient support, pre- and post-visit outreach, and other critical interactions throughout the care journey.
  • Vyasa Analytics enables clients to organize and manage unstructured and semi-structured data assets via its Layar deep learning data fabric software. Data integrated within Layar can be used to derive insights and build dynamic knowledge graphs with intuitive natural language question answering.
  • ELLKAY builds the data pipeline for labs, hospitals and health systems, ambulatory providers, healthcare IT vendors and payers. They offer interoperability data solutions, including data integrations, interface and connectivity solutions, data exchange feeds and conversion and data archive services. 

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 300+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit https://sap.io/.

In Berlin, Munich, Portfolio News, CRM & Customer Experience

Too Good To Go Celebrates 1 Year Fighting Food Waste in the U.S.

Too Good To Go, the tech-for-good company powering the world’s #1 anti-food waste app, today celebrates its first anniversary in the U.S. and the impact it’s had fighting food waste across the country, from New York City, Washington, D.C. and Chicago to Austin, San Francisco and Seattle. Via the Too Good To Go app, available for iOS in the Apple store or Google Play for Android, the company has successfully connected millions of Americans with surplus from local restaurants, bakeries, cafes and grocery stores so delicious food doesn’t go to waste, or further contribute to the climate crisis.

The newest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released last month, called attention to a shocking reality of the climate crisis, notably that food waste now contributes to 10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions—up from 8% in years prior. With this in mind, Americans now have an easy way to take action against food waste through the Too Good To Go app. In just one short year in the U.S., over 1.5 million Americans and 5,000 food businesses have downloaded the app, and collectively saved over 800,000 meals – the carbon footprint equivalent to 394 flights around the world.

“The U.S. has really embraced our super simple concept for saving surplus food, to the point where we’ve never seen this amount of impact and growth in a new market this quickly,” said Lucie Basch, Co-founder of Too Good To Go. “We’re so excited to bring our solution to even more U.S. cities in the coming months and we can’t wait to see what next year holds.”

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In Press, Berlin, HR & People Engagement

Now Streaming: Binge-Worthy Digital Corporate Learning Programs

Imagine getting immersed in your next corporate training program the same way you’ve binged watched your favorite Netflix series. That’s the kind of engaging employee training experience that startup Hardskills has created.

Unlike traditional formats that rely on talking head lectures, Hardskills training programs are more akin to cinematic productions, featuring professional directors and actors who replicate real-world situations culturally aligned to global audiences. The objective is to serve up personalized content that builds someone’s human skills. As digital natives increasingly dominate the workforce, it turns out that skills such as being open to new ideas, critical thinking, and influencing people are prized just as much as technical know-how in the enterprise arena.

“Our digital learning platform delivers the content, technology, administration, and metrics that provide personalized, interactive training for people to gain the behavioral and cognitive skills they need,” said Shoba Purushothaman, co-founder and COO at Hardskills. “With data-driven assessments, we deliver personalized coaching based on the skills graph of each employee.”

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In Berlin, ERP & Finance

How CPG Brands Are Keeping Up With Retail’s Fastest-Moving Consumer Demands

Nobody understands the frustration of consumers who can’t find the products they’re looking for more than the experts at Teamcore, an AI-based startup with operations in Latin America and the United States. Teamcore’s cloud-based software platform uses machine learning to power intelligent workflow automation that tells CPG companies and retailers why products aren’t selling and what they can do about it fast.

“We help CPG companies and retailers make sure products are available when their customers are ready to buy,” said Sergio Della Maggiora, founder and CEO of Teamcore. “Whether someone is shopping online or in a physical store, our retail execution platform based on intelligent workflows helps connect data across the supply chain from warehouse to shelf virtually or in-store, so companies don’t miss out on sales opportunities.”

Based on sales data analytics, Della Maggiora said that Teamcore’s machine learning algorithm detects when products aren’t selling as planned, and in over 94 percent of cases, finds the root cause of the problem before assigning a task. Unlike garden variety alerts, Teamcore’s intelligent workflow notifications keep going until they reach the people who solve the problem. If someone in replenishment can’t find the product in the warehouse to restock virtual or in-store shelves, the workflow automatically routes that task to the appropriate store sales representatives, all the way up to regional store and supply chain managers.

“Teamcore connects the whole CPG and retail team for opportunity detection sales, and doesn’t stop until someone actually fixes the problem,” said Della Maggiora. “Over time, the collected data trains the model, improving its accuracy and ability to make predictions about potential issues.”

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