Skip to main content

Supporting LGBTQ+ Founders and Fostering Inclusion in the Tech & VC Industries

By Max Kahn, Director, SAP.iO

As an out and proud leader at SAP, I couldn’t be more excited to celebrate Pride Month and recognize the inspiring LGBTQ+ individuals who’ve made a significant impact in the world of tech, entrepreneurship, and venture capital. This month, we not only celebrate our community’s resilience and pride, but also reflect on the progress we’ve made and the work that still needs to be done to create a more inclusive and equitable world. In recent years, the world has seen a surge of innovative LGBTQ+ startup founders who’ve broken barriers and paved the way for a new generation of entrepreneurs. Despite these achievements, the world of venture capital continues to be primarily male & pale, with only a small percentage of investments going to startups founded by women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and people of color.

According to a study by StartOut, LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs are less likely to receive funding from investors compared to their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts, despite having comparable or even better performance metrics. This disparity highlights the pressing need for greater representation and support for the LGBTQ+ community in the venture capital space. As corporates, we have a responsibility to do better and foster an inclusive environment that encourages and supports LGBTQ+ employees & founders.

Here are some ways we can contribute:

1. Educate investors and customers about the value of diversity: It’s proven that diverse teams lead to better decision-making and innovation. By educating about the benefits of funding underrepresented founded & led startups, we can continue to shift the narrative and encourage more inclusive investments. For example, companies that embrace pro LGBTQ+ policies outperform those without them in the stock market by more than three percent. In our SAP.iO portfolio, underrepresented startups make up 44% of our portfolio and tie or surpass their counterparts in benchmarks used to measure success including number of exits and likelihood to progress in their partnership with SAP.

2. Embrace inclusive policies & benefits: Encourage your company and portfolio companies to adopt policies and practices that are inclusive and supportive of LGBTQ+ employees. Join SAP by embedding inclusive language into the DNA of your company, offering comprehensive coverage for gender-affirming care, and providing fertility support and family-building benefits for people of all identities. Recognizing pronouns is also essential to creating an inclusive environment for transgender and nonbinary colleagues. I’m proud that employees can easily add their chosen name and personal pronouns to their people profiles in SAP SuccessFactors. In addition to building inclusive companies and ecosystems, lobbying for equality is more important than ever. It’s important to recognize that one-third of the countries worldwide still criminalize homosexuality.

3. Foster collaborations & partnerships: Collaborate with organizations, accelerators, and non-profits that specifically focus on supporting LGBTQ+ founders and funders. Partnerships create a stronger support network for LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and contribute to their long-term success. In addition, supporting emerging LGBTQ+ VCs increases diversity within the VC community and drives more equitable decisions. Organizations like StartOut, Gaingels, and Out in Tech are fantastic resources for both startups and corporates to get involved with.

This Pride Month let’s celebrate the achievements of our community and continue working together to build a more inclusive and equitable future for all.

Censia’s Growth Journey

Meet Censia

What makes Censia tick? Their core value that every person counts.  Founded in 2017 by CEO Joanna Riley, Censia unleashes the power of the people by delivering transformative talent intelligence, helping customers supercharge SAP’s human resources management solutions portfolio with AI-powered resume review, passive sourcing, and candidate evaluation. After achieving a 10x growth in 2020 following a $21M Series A funding round, Censia has been helping the biggest brands optimize recruitment and talent management by transforming executive intelligence, workforce intelligence, and talent acquisition.

Making Data-Driven Talent Decisions

Censia’s partnership journey with SAP began in 2019 when Censia joined SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco’s Future of Work accelerator as a seed-stage company. Looking to leverage the strength of SAP’s network, Censia quickly became an SAP partner with an integrated solution in SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting and a listing on SAP Store. Censia Talent Intelligence was fast to become wildly successful and last year, Censia became an SAP Endorsed Application, a prestigious recognition only received by 1% of SAP store partner solutions. To date, Censia has closed numerous deals with SAP and major brands such as Tapestry Inc., TJ Maxx, and PepsiCo Inc. Today, as Censia rapidly scales, SAP continues to see the major impact their solution has on improving human resource management for SAP SuccessFactors customers.

On Partnering with SAP.iO

Censia CEO Joanna Riley credits her experience working with SAP.iO and the inside knowledge and insights shared as critical in helping to set Censia up for success in working with enterprise. Riley shared that SAP.iO’s input on company presentation was extremely valuable in successful meetings with SAP, SAP customers, and investors, and really felt part of a selective group of entrepreneurs who are the next generation of leaders with an edge.

 

“Entrepreneurship is about continuous learning and to be able to be part of SAP.iO, I feel like I’m cheating. I’m learning from lessons that have been learned through years of experience that SAP has acquired and taking those and applying them to my business so that we have a head start. I would recommend any company especially focused on enterprise to look at SAP.iO as a real solution to build a produce that is great for enterprise.”
– Joanna Riley, CEO, Censia

 

As one of the most successful startups in the SAP.iO portfolio, we look forward to many more joint successes and a fruitful journey together ahead! Learn more about how Censia adds AI-powered talent intelligence to SAP SuccessFactors here.

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/ 

Inspiring Innovators: Riana Lynn CEO and Founder of Journey Foods, On being a serial entrepreneur

At SAP.iO, we work with innovative people and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we get to hear how founders, CEOs, presidents of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders.

Meet Riana Lynn

Starting as a biology student in college building websites on the side, Riana Lynn was unknowingly launching her journey as a serial entrepreneur. Even as a kid, she knew she wanted to work on health issues to impact her community positively. Using her background in biology, she took an interest in larger food systems and how food affects our chronic diseases. Coming from a family of food entrepreneurs and farmers, it was no surprise that Riana’s first food company became one of the top juice bars in the country. After this accomplishment, she had the opportunity to work at the White House and even spent some time in Silicon Valley working for Google.

With all this experience to pull from, Riana set her sights on a new horizon, developing solutions that solve food science and supply chain inefficiencies. Riana shared with us that consumers spend $3 trillion a year on packaged foods and that research shows evidence that eating packaged foods is related to the increase in chronic diseases and poor mental health. Confident that we could change these problems with better science and data tools, Riana founded Journey Foods.

Journey Foods is a portfolio intelligence and lifecycle management software for food development and innovation. Their approach puts nutrition and sustainability at the forefront of product development, helping formulate products according to specific consumer and company goals. To further their impressive progress, Journey Foods builds integrations with companies like SAP to drive widespread impact quickly.

“I work on solving the most significant problems in food that effect my family, our communities, and the world.”

Read More…

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 theyare 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/  

Inspiring Innovators: Paula Paw Co-CEO of VersaFleet, On Being Tenacious

At SAP.iO, we work with innovative people and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we get to hear how founders, CEOs, and presidents of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders.

Meet Paula Paw

Just four days after submitting her last exam paper, Paula Paw was offered a job at VersaFleet. Paula joined VersaFleet as a pioneering team member and played a central role in its growth journey. Graduating from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts and Social Sciences, she started her career at VersaFleet in Sales and Marketing. Over the course of 6 years, she was promoted to Senior Sales Executive, Regional Sales Manager, Head of Sales Strategy & Operations Planning, and now leads the company as Co-Chief Executive Officer.

VersaFleet is a transport management software that optimizes route plans and fully digitalizes supply chains, all the way to the last mile. At VersaFleet, Paula now focuses on accelerating VersaFleet’s growth and synchronizing essential company functions, from sales & marketing, product design, and engineering, to finance and people operations. The company’s mission is to provide technology for all transporters — in any industry, market, or country. They built VersaFleet in hopes that the technology would enable the unsung heroes of logistics to get home in time for dinner.

“The goal for the coming years is to establish a stronger market presence so that we can serve the brands that face difficult challenges. When we help them, it will have a trickle-down effect, and the drivers will ultimately benefit; we are hoping to create a better work-life balance.”

Read More…

Inspiring Innovators: Daniela Schiffer Co-founder & CEO of Changers.com on nerves of steel

At SAP.iO, we work with innovative people and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we get to hear how founders, CEOs, presidents of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders.

Meet Daniela Schiffer

Daniela Schiffer started studying art and worked as an artist until 2007 with the hope that art would be a tool she could use to influence change in society. After some time, she realized to achieve her goals she would need to find another way to influence behavior change. Working with an advertising agency doing a lot of communication primarily for high tech and renewable energy companies, she saw a different path forward. Daniela grew changers.com to address the issue of behavior change in terms of climate control, looking to incentivize and motivate sustainable and healthy behavior. Not a small undertaking by any means, this task takes perseverance and, at times, nerves of steel.

Today, Daniela Schiffer is Co-founder and CEO of Changers.com, a company that looks to change behavior through its CO2 Fit app. This app motivates employees to use a bicycle instead of a car, walk more often, use public transport, and participate in eco-friendly and healthy activities. Here employees learn more about waste reduction, healthy nutrition, energy-saving, and address green mobility. Changers is doing so by building an ecosystem for climate currency, meaning that by saving CO2, you earn climate coins to spend in their marketplace for products and services with partners. Changers was recognized as a EUPD TOP BRAND in workplace health promotion and by the Solarimpulse Foundation for efficient climate protection.

“I want to motivate people, not by showing them all the threats to the future, but by showing them how they can positively impact change by simple changes in behavior.”

Read more and watch highlights of Alexa and Daniela’s discussion here

SAP.iO Foundry Shanghai Kicks-Off Future of Work Program

May 9, 2022SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) launched a Future of Work program in its SAP.iO Shanghai location. Launched in partnership with SAP SuccessFactors, the cohort scouted startups that have synergistic effects with human resource management in Greater China. After several rounds of selection, a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers, and investment funds selected 8 startups to join the spring program.

The Future of Work cohort has two themes this spring: intelligent recruitment and talent management. Over the next 16 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 Shanghai Spring 2022 program:

  • ZMBeidiao: Zhima background check is a SaaS platform that makes it easier for employers to obtain job seeker information through big data.
  • Gaia Works: Gaia Works is a labor management cloud service platform, driven by machine learning algorithms, which can provide management labor force forecasting, scheduling, time attendance, working hours and sales performance, etc.
  • Cool College: Coolcollege is both an enterprise-level SaaS learning development platform and a learning management system. It provides enterprise users with an easy-to-use collaborative e-learning platforms and comprehensive corporate training services to promote the joint growth of business & talent.
  • Neufast: Neufast offers a SaaS cloud-based HCM with proprietary AI-powered multi-lingual video interview talent assessment system to help employers identify the right talent, increase recruitment efficiency and enhance diversity & inclusion for the Future of Work.
  • Joyowo: Joyowo is a digital HR service provider that provides a full spectrum of HR services, including Business Process Outsourcing, Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Gig worker management, to 85,000 enterprises in catering, retail, logistics industries, etc. In addition, Joyowo is building a HR SaaS+AI solution matrix to increase the efficiency of close-loop digital process.
  • AI RecruiTas: AI RecruiTas is an intelligent system for talent acquisition management. To be differentiated from the conventional digitalized recruitment ATS (applicant tracking system), AI RecruiTas has at its core the JYI (JinYu Intelliegence) Super Brain which applies end-to-end content & context semantics recognition as well as multimodal algorithms to Human Resources (HR) domain.
  • Mesoor AI: Mesoor AI provides leading integrated and intelligent talent decision-making solutions for medium and large enterprises. Through full-scenario data aggregation, ETL and data transformation, self-developed AI platform and BI data lake system, Mesoor AI has successfully helped HR in many companies including Geely, Taikang and BOE to achieve smart external recruitment decisions and matching between employee full profile and internal job opportunities.
  • Moka HR: Moka HR is a human resources SaaS provider, which can provide enterprises with end to end talent management solutions.

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/.

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 DigitalFood 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/

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/

Inspiring Innovators: Rashi Gupta Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist Rezo.ai, On Wearing Multiple Hats

At SAP.iO, we work with innovative people and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we get to hear how founders, CEOs, presidents of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders.

Meet Rashi Gupta

Earning her PhD from the University of Helsinki for data science, Rashi Gupta’s experience equips her for her role as an entrepreneur. Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist at Rezo.ai, she finds herself taking on multiple functions. Rashi focuses on data science, but she also plays a significant role in sales as the product is very analytical and she thrives on pitching the product. If that’s not all, she currently assists with deliveries, among other tasks. She embodies the idea that you have to wear multiple hats on your journey to entrepreneurial success as a founder. In doing so, she is well on her way to becoming a disruptor in the contact center industry.

Rezo’s AI-Powered Contact Center augments human agents by automating repetitive processes, allowing them to focus on high-value tasks and enhancing customer experience. Rashi founded Rezo.ai with her husband, Manish Gupta, who she says challenges her every day, “he has pushed me beyond what I thought I was capable of, he always encourages me to make the next right move. You need someone to push you, and that helped us get to the next level.” Rashi credits that support and their teamwork at Rezo as part of the reason for their success.

“I was working with a large contact center, and I saw how things happened on the floor. With limited information about the end customers, the callers use to drive conversations taking time while details are checked on multiple 3rd party systems. This led to delay and frustration at the customers end, there was a clear need for process automation. That’s when I realized it was time to elevate the customer experience to the next level.”

Read more and watch highlights of Rashi and Alexa’s discussion here.

 

SAP.iO Foundry Tokyo To Accelerate Startups for Sustainable Enterprise

April 20, 2021 SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today launched its B2B startup program at SAP.iO Foundry Tokyo with focus on Sustainable Enterprise. Six startups working in the areas of chasing Zero Emissions, Zero Waste, Zero Inequality, and building trust with transparency have been selected to join the program.

“With SAP customers generating 87% of total global commerce, we recognize both the opportunity and responsibility to deliver digital solutions that enable our customers to manage limited resources productively, contribute to an inclusive economy, and shape a sustainable future.” said Hirofumi Suzuki, SAP Japan President and Representative Director. “This program will encourage our customers to utilize a variety of new solutions or technologies with SAP systems brought by cutting-edged startups”

The equity-free program is designed to accelerate innovation and drive new business models for SAP’s customers. During the 13-week virtual program, the startups will have access to curated mentorship, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), as well as collaboration opportunities with SAP customers.

The data and analytics cohort includes the following startups:

  • Astamuse provides data and algorithms for solving social problems and creating the future.
  • Babel provide “ailead” – cloud-based online meeting management and analysis service that maximizes the results of the entire sales team by supporting the development of salespersons.
  • Eitoss provides cloud services specialized in kaizen proposals system for manufacturing and other on-site industries.
  • Latona develops and provides Edge / AI / IoT Platform, Products, Solutions and Technologies.
  • Pirika contributes to resolve environmental issues based “Takanome” (assess litter distribution), “Pirika” (anti-litter SNS application), and “Albatross” (survey system of microplastics).
  • sustainacract provides highly transparent forest evaluation solution to generate sound fund flow to nature capital.

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

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/

Meet 4 SAP.iO startups working to make the Future of Work more diverse

SAP prides itself on making its customers and the world run at its best. In no other area is this more apparent than within its New Ventures and Technologies (NVT) organization, where teams across the company work together to bring new, innovative technologies into the company’s core portfolio. NVT has committed itself to developing teams and solutions that align with SAP’s overall goals – whether they are tied to the company’s business goals, sustainability goals, or more notably, its diversity and inclusion (D&I) goals.

One example of that commitment to diversity and equity is the SAP.iO No Boundaries initiative to accelerate more than 200 startups founded or led by women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ and others from underrepresented groups in tech by 2023. The program is the first comprehensive inclusive entrepreneurship initiative for underrepresented entrepreneurs in the business software industry. Each SAP.iO Foundry location follows a different theme within respective No Boundaries cohorts, with themes ranging from Professional Services to the Future of Work, and more.

The SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco’s Spring 2021 cohort was built around the topic of the Future of Work. Here are four startups from the most recent program that aren’t just founded by underrepresented entrepreneurs but have also dedicated themselves to increasing diversity and equity in the workplace.

Gapsquare (Acquired by XpertHR)

Founded in 2015 by Dr. Zara Nanu and Ion Suruceanu, Gapsquare is building a world where work is inclusive, pay meets value, and diverse talent thrives. Through its SaaS platform, Gapsquare offers insights into salary equity for gender, race and/or disability, inbuilt consultancy, and data-driven recommendations for change. By focusing on these key areas, companies will be able to compete in today’s job market and adequately address the concerns of employees and prospective hires.

With Gapsquare’s fair pay analysis, companies can approach pay equity with a clear understanding of root causes of issues and help focus their resources to implement sustainable change. Not only that, but the startup also utilizes the data on its platform to support organizations with pay gap reporting legislation and equal pay audit work.

Gapsquare integrates with SAP SuccessFactors so customers can analyze their people and pay data to better understand inequity in their organizations. According to Nanu, understanding pain points and actioning sustainable change helps users build more flexible, engaged, and happy workforces.

HumanlyHR Inc

Based in Seattle, Humanly was founded in 2019 by Prem Kumar and Andrew Gardner and aims to create more equitable and efficient job interviews through conversational analytics.  The startup automates job candidate interactions and provides hiring teams with voice analytics to not only make interviews more efficient but also less biased.

Today’s hiring teams handle a high volume of applicants per role, where they have to sift through hundreds of applications and resumes. Such an influx means a lot of qualified candidates may not be engaged with at all – falling into what the Humanly team calls the “black hole” at the top of the hiring funnel. Humanly works to solve the issue by using data to ask the right candidate the right question, thus replacing the need for large teams of recruiting coordinators. Not only that, but Humanly automates top-of-funnel hiring tasks and provides interview analytics to hiring teams so that they can focus on improving areas of the hiring process that should remain human-driven and empathetic.

In addition to interview analytics and insights, Humanly also automates note-taking for interviews, screening and scheduling for high applicant volume roles, re-engagement of silver medalist candidates, reference checks, and two-way applicant tracking system integrations.

Humanly integrates with the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Module so that all candidate conversations and associated efficiency and equity analytics are synced into candidate records in SuccessFactors, including adding interviews analytics, adding new candidate records, updating, and moving screened candidates to the right place in the SF Recruiting Module and attaching interview notes.  

Mentor Spaces

For many employees of color, corporate allyship and career mentorship may be a feat easier said than done. Mentor Spaces is working to solve this challenge through its community-driven membership for Black and Latinx professionals.

Founded in 2017 by Chris Motley the startup works to help companies scale D&I efforts while advancing the careers of underrepresented talent by encouraging mentorship among community members. In doing so, diverse talent acquisition and retention are streamlined within companies.

One charge that Mentor Spaces wants to take on is bridging the gap between siloed HR teams and employee networks, or Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). The startup posits that ERG members want to support HR teams but are unable to due to lack of bandwidth and visibility into the hiring process. Partnering with Mentor Spaces enables both HR and ERGs to connect, and in doing so they can build diverse talent pipeline, improve retention, and enhance corporate culture.

Mentor Spaces’ platform has a plethora of features, including native mobile apps that facilitate mentorship conversations. Not only that, but they have launched community partnerships with national nonprofit organizations and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to provide direct access to the largest pool of underrepresented professionals that Mentor Spaces helps cultivate on behalf of its clients.

The Mom Project

Called the “career destination for moms,” The Mom Project provides companies with consistent, scalable access to the most comprehensive community of highly skilled gender and ethnically diverse moms (but they also include dads and allies) in the United States.

According to founder Allison Robinson, The Mom Project was built with moms in mind, and has become a two-sided marketplace and community that connects companies with highly skilled and professionally relevant talent. This marketplace facilitates all work types, ranging from short-term staffing needs to customized talent programs and is now comprised of more than 500,000 professionals with strong backgrounds in the core suite of business functions including: marketing, sales, finance, technology, legal, and HR.

Every aspect of The Mom Project has been designed on the core insight that juggling work and family is hard. With that in mind, the team wanted to make them feel supported throughout every step in the journey. Thus, The Mom Project’s platform isn’t a job posting platform, but one that actively supports moms throughout the entire application process. Profile and resume crafting, job search programs, covering childcare so candidates can prepare for interviews, and community generated support are only a handful of the platform’s features.

The Mom Project’s API complements SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting by shortening the hiring process and allowing organizations to have one system of record for talent process that consider high-skilled moms with the willingness to return to work.

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

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

SAP.iO sign

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 DeveloperFull Stack DeveloperData ScientistUX 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/