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In Foundries, Press, Tel Aviv, Portfolio News

Announcing the Seven Startups in SAP.iO’s Utilities Accelerator

After two months of examining more than 100 candidates from 20 different countries, this week SAP.iO announced the 7 companies that will participate in the program that will be seasoned from Israel. Under the current program, SAP is also collaborating with two of its customers – the European energy company E.ON and the Israel Electric Company, which were also partners in selecting the startups for the program. The program will run for 3 months during which the selected startups will work together with SAP on defining the common solution for the market, on integration with the company’s systems and on addressing SAP customers worldwide.

Original article here…

In Foundries, Press Release, Bangalore

SAP.iO Announces Six Innovative Indian Startup Participants in the First SAP.iO Foundry Bangalore

SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced its first SAP.iO Foundry accelerator in Bangalore and the six participating Indian startups. The SAP.iO program is part of SAP’s innovation strategy and designed to accelerate early-stage business-to-business startups that build innovative software and deliver high value for SAP’s customers.

The new Bangalore location demonstrates continued commitment of SAP.iO Fund to investing in breakthrough early-stage enterprise software startups, which capitalize on emerging trends and have the potential to unlock significant value for SAP and its customers.

“SAP.iO Foundry Bangalore reflects SAP’s commitment to the dynamic Indian ecosystem,” said Scott Russell, president of SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ). “We believe these startups have the ability to positively contribute to India’s growth potential by offering a variety of advanced solutions for SAP’s customers in India and the wider APJ region.”

The Bangalore accelerator is the ninth location of SAP.iO and is part of a wider and exclusive global network of similar programs. Other locations include San Francisco, Singapore and Berlin.

“We will be working hand in hand over the next three months with these innovative startups to help them accelerate and deliver winning outcomes and incremental value to our customers,” said Lalitha Bhaskara, head of SAP.iO Foundries APJ.

The SAP.iO Foundries program is a global network of equity-free startup accelerators, which help promising startups integrate with SAP solutions and accelerate their entry into a curated, inclusive ecosystem whose offerings can be easily accessed and deployed by SAP customers.

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

  • Adloid provides end-end solutions and tools for augmented reality and virtual reality applications for the retail industry.
  • FocusLabs provides a suite of logistics solutions built on artificial intelligence–based algorithms for route optimization, load planning and smart inspection.
  • Jumper.AI provides omnichannel customer-focused conversational commerce and engagement to enterprises and large-scale direct-to-consumer brands.
  • Parcel Perform provides logistics data and value-added services to businesses to supercharge the postpurchase customer experience.
  • Saara provides image-recognition tools to automate inventory processes and reduce supply-chain costs.
  • Schrocken Inc.’s pharmaceutical contract manufacturing platform provides transparency, control and compliance adherence to enterprises outsourcing manufacturing.
In Foundries, Singapore

SAP.iO Startup Feature – Pulsifi

How do HR professionals ensure that they consistently hire and develop talent with the rights skills to lead their organization towards success?

Meet Pulsifi, an AI-driven predictive analytics and people data platform jointly integrated with SAP SuccessFactors, that helps you understand each person’s suitability to a role by harnessing the power of data and organization psychology.

Pulsifi is a graduate of SAP.iO Foundry Singapore: Intelligent Enterprise (2019) Cohort and SAP AppCenter partner.

Watch here for more…

In Article, COVID-19, Foundries

COVID-19 Is Transforming How We Shop For Food

t’s no surprise that grocery stores have done particularly well during the pandemic. Everyone needs to eat and stock up on dry goods. What is surprising is the way the pandemic is changing our buying habits.

People are spending less time in stores, but when they do go, they buy more. There is less human contact as people shop more online and have goods delivered. And supermarkets have become more transactional with less focus on merchandising as people want to get in and out quickly.

During a discussion about the new era of grocery retail sponsored by SAP as part of the The Retail Summit, experts from a home delivery food kit business and an unmanned grocery retailer shared insights and new developments.

Corona cohorts

Robert Grieg-Gran, Co-Founder of Mindful Chef, UK’s highest rated home-delivered recipe box, recounted how the team sat down to make some strategic decisions at the start of the pandemic. Before Covid-19, the company was delivering 12,000 fresh food boxes a week, each containing 5 or 6 meals. When the crisis hit, people stopped eating out, and cooking at home was the only option. Panic buying emptied supermarket shelves, supply chains were disrupted, and competitors were closing their doors. Suddenly, Mindful Chef was delivering 35,000 boxes per week. 

“We asked ourselves, what could we do differently, so people could access fresh food when they need it most,” Grieg-Gran explained. The team was determined to keep their doors open throughout. This meant dropping the menu, increasing the supply chain lead time, and making lots of last-minute substitutions.

“Was the service amazing? No. Was the supply chain perfect? No. But we thought it was important for our customers to get something, rather than us to just shut our doors,” says the chef from Devon. “We added new packing staff, expanded our relationships with our warehouse and delivery partners to scale the business, and maintained ownership of our end-to-end fulfillment process.”

The strategy paid off. People who signed up in March have become repeat customers. “We call them our Corona Cohorts,” says Grieg-Gran with a grin. “They come back because they know they’ll get what they want. After all, food is still a very intimate thing. You’re going to put it inside your body, so you need to trust the people you buy it from.”

Technology and data analytics play a key role in the business. Mindful Chef’s customers expect the team to curate options, so they don’t have to think about what to cook. Data science makes it possible to give each customer the best recommendation because they won’t see menu options they don’t like. The company uses machine learning models to figure out what customers like based on their purchasing histories.

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In Foundries, Singapore

SAP.iO Startup Highlight – Clarity by Hybird

Find out how Clarity, a cloud-based visual asset inspection platform that is integrated with SAP’s Intelligent Asset Management suite including the Asset Intelligence Network (AIN), is able to help asset-intensive companies reduce unplanned downtime by 60%, planned downtime by 30%, AND increase inspection and maintenance efficiency by more than 80%.

Hybird is a graduate of SAP.iO Foundry Singapore: Industry 4.0: SAP S/4HANA & Digital Supply Chain (2020) Cohort.

Watch to find out more….

In Foundries, Article, Berlin, New York

Startups Are Re-Defining Cybersecurity As A Driver For Growth

Imagine a world where businesses execute strategies without worrying about securing data. Now imagine a world where fast paced cybersecurity capabilities enable trusted data to become a source for growth. Guess what? Both are possible today.

A lot of ink has been spilled over data protection and now that National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is here, it’s high time we underscore the importance of secure data becoming a growth driver.

According to a 2020 Accenture report, on average, it makes sense for organizations to look beyond their four walls to protect their ecosystems since cybersecurity programs actively protect only 60 percent of an organization’s business ecosystem. Considering 40 percent of breaches come via this route, organizations don’t have the luxury of being too complacent. This may be why 2019 saw $10 billion in privacy and security company investments at an all-time high, according to Crunchbase. Let’s take a closer look at what’s driving this.

Addressing security gaps

While enterprises are overburdened with privacy laws (GDPR and CCPA), complex attacks, and increasingly sophisticated attackers, means cybersecurity startups are more proactively addressing the need for data protection. This is accomplished by providing best of breed point solutions to address security gaps not easily addressed by slower incumbent security solutions offering broader suites of often poorly integrated features. In the process, they are also helping manage enterprise IT complexities, minimize risk, comply with new regulations and allow for more nimble business processes that can expand opportunities beyond traditional industry boundaries and drive revenue growth, including the pursuit of new digital business models.

Speaking of new business models, enterprises are either already operating on-prem or considering how they can move to the cloud. By aligning with cybersecurity startups, enterprises can focus more on what they are good at while also gaining the agility to align and refine strategic planning to make a more secure transformation to the cloud.

How to thwart evolving threats

Let’s face it. Technology and the threats that often keep IT departments and executives alike up at night are both consistently evolving. As a result, cybersecurity startups often times have more laser-focus when it comes to attracting top talent to tap next-generation technologies (AI, machine learning, blockchain, etc.) to solve specific security problems which can be complimentary to existing security solutions. Thus, startups can help enterprises securely scale, be more relevant in the market and be more responsive when it comes to vulnerabilities/threats tapping the latest innovation.

Having more openness toward outside innovation in today’s volatile global economy should further validate the breadth of opportunity for cybersecurity innovation. Why? There is clearly a need for simple and effective ways to create, enforce, and monitor our security policies/controls across multi-cloud and even hybrid environments. Ideally, this functionality can help businesses aggregate vast amounts of data more quickly, remain more agile and avoid downtime which can hurt operations, reputation and revenue.

Make no mistake. We need to move the typical thought process on security away from the notion that cyberthreats are only an external issue. In fact, it’s quite the opposite case and yet another reason cybersecurity innovation must continue to evolve.

Verizon’s 2019 Insider Threat Report found that 57% of database breaches include insider threats and the majority, 61%, of those employees are not in leadership positions when they compromise customer data. This only strengthens the idea that making sure your digital operations are secure, scalable, compliant and interoperable is crucial not just your IT department but to compliance officers as well as those in sustainability, procurement, finance and strategy alike. Thus, collaborating with security startups is more important than ever in a world being forced to increasingly operate remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I would be remiss not to mention that data is increasingly valuable, and the backbone to AI, so tapping next-generation cybersecurity technologies is no longer a nice have. It’s a requirement to secure data and leverage it for growth opportunities. At least it should be for the modern enterprise that will witness over 500 billion connected things by 2030.

Impact of data and analytics

Due to the advancement of the internet of things, data is being used like never before in human history. The ability to safeguard data privacy, create new intelligent applications for IoT and also use data to predict next generation applications opens the door for startups to help manage complexities in IoT systems, especially as cloud computing moves closer and closer to edge computing.

This is why SAP.iO Foundry Berlin just kicked off its Data & Analytics cohort and why SAP.iO is proud to accelerate cybersecurity innovation through companies such as BigID, a SAP.iO Fund portfolio company focused on helping organizations know their data for privacy, protection and perspective. We have also recently welcomed LISNR, a startup focused on contactless authentication using ultrasonic sound verification, to our SAP.iO Foundry New York Fall Cohort.

Read More…

In Foundries, Press

TOP 100 SWISS STARTUPS 2020

The TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award ranking has become a benchmark in Switzerland’s startup ecosystem. The innovative solutions of Switzerland’s TOP security startups 2020 ensure that digital data, networks, and digital assets are protected, secured, and trustworthy.

PXL Vision was named to the list for the second year in a row. PXL Vision is a graduate of SAP.iO Foundry Berlin’s 2019 FinTech Global Risk & Compliance cohort.

PXL Vision’s software enables the digital identification of people thanks to the use of artificial intelligence. All it needs is a smartphone and a passport. In the Swiss home market, SwissID, banks, and large telecommunications providers are already customers. The multi-award-winning ETH spin-off gained seed funding of CHF 4.6 million this year.

Read More…

In Foundries, Article, Portfolio News, Technologies

SAP Startup Spotlight: ARpalus

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 ARpalus.

E-3 Magazine talked to ARpalus about what its solution has to offer, how it relates to existing SAP systems, and what’s next for the company.

What exactly does ARpalus offer?

ARpalus helps CPG companies and retailers optimize their in-store operations and product availability using real-time computer-vision on tablets and smartphones to monitor store availability issues such as missing products or out of stock planogram compliance. Let’s assume, for example, that a retail chain with 200 stores generates annual revenue of US$5 billion, and at any given time, there is a 5 percent out of stock (OoS). If this chain’s assortment is 40,000 SKUs, 5 percent means 2,000 SKUs that are constantly missing from the shelves. Let’s assume that this OoS problem leads to a 2 percent loss of sale; this translates to a huge loss of US$100M in potential revenues. At ARpalus, we believe that the unique combination of computer vision and augmented reality is key to a more efficient and automated retail space. Perfect retail execution eliminates manual or semi-manual methods that are commonly used today among CPGs and retailers. At first, we help our customers get visibility regarding the daily stores’ operations by the granularity of a shelf, category, SKU, store, or geographical location. This helps us better understand the trends inside the organization and to then generate recommendations. In a later stage, we generate recommendations directly to employees’ devices, based on data from nearby stores – all in real time.

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In Fund, Foundries, Press, Inclusiveness

Henkel hosts ideation hackathon for female entrepreneurs

Henkel’s open innovation and collaboration platform, Henkel dx Ventures, will host its second Xathon, a female ideation hackathon. This year’s main partner is “Global Digital Women”. The hackathon aims to empower female tech talents to develop and shape their entrepreneurial mindset and ideas. It will take place on November 20-22, 2020. The application period is now open and closes on October 30. Interested participants can apply at www.henkel.com/digital-business/xathon-2020.

With the Xathon, Henkel wants to advocate female entrepreneurship, promote innovative ideas and drive gender diversity in the start-up and tech scene. In total, 60 female talents will get the chance to participate in this year’s event. Further partners of the Xathon 2020 are accelerateHer, SAP’s early stage venture arm SAP.iO and MVP Factory.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Xathon is going to take place as a virtual event.

Read More…

In Foundries, Paris, Press Release, Portfolio News

SAP Kicks Off SAP.iO Foundry Paris for Procurement Startups

 SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced that SAP.iO Foundry Paris kicked off its new accelerator program focused on procurement. Over the next 10 weeks, SAP will accelerate eight startups selected for their innovative approaches to supply management, user experience and process automation.

The startups will have access to technical integration guidance, curated mentorship, and exposure to SAP technology, and they will join Ariba Network, the world’s largest B2B sales network of 4.6 million business partners in 190 countries. This will help SAP to provide customers with solutions that complement its SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba offerings.

“Procurement is an essential part of companies’ operations that can prove to be a real economic lever,” SAP.iO Foundry Paris Director Sébastien Gibier said. “We have been able to observe various areas of improvement in the sourcing process that can guarantee companies greater efficiency, transparency and security. The eight selected startups will create innovative solutions that complement those of SAP and bring more value to our customers.”

The SAP.iO Foundry Paris cohort members are the following:

  • Archlet.io is an intuitive sourcing consulting platform that allows buyers to better anticipate negotiations by relying on more-advanced market data linked to the company’s purchasing data.
  • Chai is an English web application that uses state-of-the-art AI with relevant data to make price predictions on a cross-section of commodities, giving customers access to important data in the form of price forecasts.
  • Deployed is an English platform used to efficiently digitalize specifications. It uses a combination of questions and answers to write a complete and accurate specification.
  • Flowlity is a French SaaS planning solution that optimizes inventory management between companies and suppliers. Flowlity reduces the risk of overstocking and shortages by issuing alerts when certain anomalies are detected. This allows companies to act as quickly and avoid costly interruptions.
  • Per Angusta is a French collaborative SaaS solution for performance management. It enables companies to optimize their expenses, reduce risk taking, prioritize projects and measure objectives.
  • Scalue is a German web application that enables companies to identify various areas of potential savings and optimize their purchasing processes.
  • Trustpair is a French SaaS solution designed for financial departments to secure different transactions and banking information with different providers.
  • Winddle is a SaaS platform with a collaborative approach to optimizing and promoting supply-chain monitoring.

This is the fifth program at SAP.iO Foundry Paris and marks its second anniversary.

In Foundries, Munich, Portfolio News

“Presize.ai” secures the mega-deal

With their start-up “Presize.ai” Tomislav Tomov (28) and Leon Szeli (26) want to change online clothing shipping. Because clothes that are ordered online cannot be tried on beforehand, there are tons of returns. Using artificial intelligence, the founders from Munich want to enable customers to order in a size-appropriate manner. The aim is to reduce returns. The team was able to convince investor Carsten Maschmeyer in the show . He negotiated a deal worth 650,000 euros for 15 percent of the company’s shares: It was the second-highest single deal that the show has ever existed.

With “Presize.ai”, the Munich founders have developed an app that helps users find the right dress size. The smartphone camera measures the entire body with just one turn of the body and creates a 3D model. The user then receives an individual code. This means that the user in the retailer’s online shops is suggested the items of clothing that really fit him.

Read More…

In Foundries, Portfolio News

Die Höhle der Löwen 2020: Goodbye returns – with “Presize” you should be able to try on clothes virtually in online shops

Today at “Die Höhle der Löwen” on Vox: “Presize”, a body-scanning software with which you can try on fashion virtually and avoid returns.

An unbelievable statistic: customers send back every second item of clothing that is bought online. One of the main reasons: You can’t try on the pieces online. What doesn’t fit becomes a return. This is not only a rather annoying additional expense for online shoppers, but also a high financial loss for online retailers. Not to mention the damage that the many packaging materials and the pointless shipping and return shipping mean for the climate. 

Tomislav Tomov (28) and Leon Szeli (27) want to solve this problem: The two inventors have developed a smartphone body-scanning software that measures the human body with the mobile phone camera within a minute. The software uses it to calculate a 3D model of the body, the measurements are precisely determined and converted into a size recommendation.

Read More…

In Foundries, Singapore, Portfolio News, Financial Services

SAP.iO Foundry Singapore Launches FinTech and COVID-19 Recovery Acceleration Program

 SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today kicked off the SAP.iO Foundry Singapore Fall 2020 acceleration program focused on COVID-19 recovery, FinTech and spend management. The selected business-to-business startups will help SAP’s customers extend the value of their investments in SAP Concur solutions for travel and expense management.

“By helping these enterprising startups in the SAP.iO program scale, we enable our customers to benefit from the value of some of these unique solutions and emerging technologies when they become available in SAP Concur App Center,” said Andy Watson, SAP Concur senior vice president and general manager, Asia Pacific Japan and Greater China.

The selected 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. The program will culminate at the SAP.iO Cohort Demo Day in December 2020.

“COVID-19 is pushing many businesses to go digital in search of growth,” Singapore Economic Development Board Vice President Ang Chin Tah said. “The Singapore Economic Development Board is glad to support the SAP.iO Foundry Singapore Fall 2020 acceleration program, which will bring startups from all around the world to Singapore to develop products that meet the needs of the new operating environment. Singapore’s established base of industry leaders in finance and digital, as well as connectedness to regional markets, make us a great testing ground for their ideas. It is a wonderful new addition to our thriving ecosystem.”

In line with the SAP.iO No Boundaries initiative, the cohort includes several startups founded or led by female entrepreneurs, a testament to SAP’s belief that a healthy ecosystem includes entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds.

The following startups are part of the SAP.iO Foundry Singapore Fall 2020 program:

  • CardUp offers a credit card enablement platform, enabling the payment or collection of big expenses using credit cards, where cards are not accepted today.
  • LuggAgent creates a standardized international luggage delivery and tracking platform by widely applying radio frequency identification (RFID) while working with logistics services providers in varying countries.
  • MatchMove makes it easy for users to move digital cash securely, allowing easy spending, sending and lending.
  • Railsbank’s open banking platform and APIs empower financial innovators to create financial services products and experiences for their customers.
  • Staple offers cognitive technology that can read, interpret and extract data from business documents faster, more affordably and more precisely than humans, at scale and in any language.
  • Timeshifter is the world’s first platform for circadian (body rhythm) shifting and helps businesses empower their traveling employees to create their own jet lag plans.
In Foundries, Portfolio News

The 2020 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Cloud HR is now live! Featuring Andjaro

Andjaro now listed in the Fosway 9 matrix, the only market analysis model that is used to understand the relative position of solutions and providers in the learning and talent systems market. 9-Grid™ has been in evolution since 2008 and is driven by demand for analysis and insight designed for European-based companies. Too often, organisations have had to rely on a US-centric view.

We created 9-Grid™ based on Fosway’s unrivalled, independent research in the Next Generation HR, Talent and Learning markets over 20 years, and with the insights and experience of our Corporate Research Network. This comprises over 150 leading global companies; typically enterprise-scale organisations with a large European presence.

A key difference of the 9-Grid™ to other analyst models, is that all of the nine zones have value and a set of actions to maximise that value. 9-Grid™ explicitly prompts real conversations around the trade-off between customer performance, solution sophistication and total cost of ownership.

Read More…

In Foundries, Tel Aviv, Portfolio News, COVID-19

Pandemic Accelerates Consumer Demand for Personalized Free Sample Boxes

Consumers are eager to discover new brands and have never been more open to trying free samples from the safety of their own homes. These were among the recent findings from a consumer shopping behavior survey conducted by startup Sampler.

Ninety-eight percent of respondents reported being more open to new brands, while just two percent said they were sticking to familiar products. What’s more, 98 percent of people were more likely to try new products if they had samples delivered to their homes compared to picking them up in store. Marie Chevrier, Sampler’s founder and chief executive officer (CEO), said these findings reflected why product sampling is full speed ahead on a digital makeover.

“Being able to digitally target consumers who have an interest in your specific products is light years ahead of traditional in-store sampling approaches,” Chevrier said. “Brand managers at consumer packaged goods companies and retailers are amazed at how targeted and measurable they can be, reaching more people who really want their products and staying close to them. Every consumer brand needs this higher level of targeting, and the COVID-19 pandemic just accelerated that demand.”

Relationships Built on Personalized Samples

Headquartered in Canada, Sampler has helped more than 500 of the world’s leading and emerging consumer packaged goods brands send samples to consumers who are interested in their products and build lasting relationships that stoke demand for more.

Sampler customers hail from 24 countries, primarily in North America and Western Europe. The brands cut across beauty, food, beverage, household, baby, personal care supplements, and vitamins, and have one common characteristic: they want to target, track, and measure product sampling programs with greater effectiveness. Like online advertising, brands decide which consumers they want to target. Except, in this case, they are shipping actual sample products to Sampler’s warehouses located worldwide.

Consumers looking for free samples can opt in to receive personalized boxes of product samples by completing a profile. Sampler has a total of approximately 60 million insights from a database of 2 million consumers. The company targets consumers against a filter of 700 segments, such as eating habits, fashion tastes, ingredient preferences, and historical activity with Sampler itself. The relationship building comes in when Sampler asks consumers how they feel about the products they received and if they were likely to purchase them. Follow-up also encourages consumers to leave reviews or ratings with feedback and take advantage of additional offers to make a purchase.

Digital Heralds New Age of Product Sampling

According to Chevrier, half of Sampler consumers who try a product sign up to receive a brand’s newsletter, and one-third rate and review sampled products. Depending on the product category, she said that companies can expect to convert between one to 10 percent of products sampled to a purchase within 90 days.

Many companies incorporate Sampler into social media advertising promotions on their own websites or others, serving up free sample offers targeted toward consumers who have opted in for certain product categories. Sampler also works with various partners, such as online magazines and retailers, with offers for their audiences.

“Companies can easily embed their free offer in an online influencer’s video review, allowing viewers to click on a link and claim their samples,” Chevrier explained. “When consumers leave reviews and ratings, the company can bring that feedback directly into their own platforms and marketing campaigns.”

Read More…