Sherry Li, Head of SAP.iO Foundry New York, joined Judy Khan Shaw on #NYSEFloorTalk to talk about what makes SAP.iO different from other start-up accelerators and shares examples of solutions its start-ups have developed.
Almost 90 percent of global financial and goods flows touch an SAP system. That kind of reach is almost unthinkable — and the tech giant wants to put it to work to empower diverse startup founders.
While the company doesn’t fund startups directly, its SAP.iO Foundries initiative arguably offers something even better. The program gives startups an opportunity to integrate within SAP’s technology ecosystem and develop relationships with the company’s vast network of customers, partners and employees.
Almost half the companies (44 percent) in SAP.iO’s global portfolio are founded or led by an underrepresented entrepreneur. Since 2017, the 525 companies incubated by SAP globally have raised around $11 billion in venture capital post-graduation from SAP.iO. They’ve also landed sales in the tens of millions thanks to connections made through the program and created around 36,000 jobs.
“The feedback that underrepresented people often get when they go to investors is, ‘You don’t have enough traction,’ whether that’s valid or not,” said Kange Kaneene, vice president of SAP.iO Foundries in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. “What we can say is: We are going to give you that traction. We’re going to give you big contracts with big customers that are incontrovertibly impactful in whatever region or industry they sit in, and then we’ll help you fundraise by introducing you to people. And that’s something that the numbers show has been extremely successful for us.”
SAP.iO intentionally seeks out underrepresented founders, who it defines as entrepreneurs from groups whose venture capital funding is disproportionately low for their region. This varies globally but often includes women, people of color, LGTBTQ people and people from countries that tend to be overlooked by VC funders.
SAP.iO formalized its commitment to these founders in 2019 with the launch of SAP.iO No Boundaries, which it bills as “the first comprehensive inclusive entrepreneurship initiative for underrepresented and underestimated entrepreneurs in the business software industry.” It pledged to scale SAP.iO Foundries with a focus on diverse founders, aiming to support at least 200 startups founded or led by underrepresented entrepreneurs by 2023. It met that goal in July, six months ahead of schedule.
But incubating startups led by diverse founders is only the beginning. Creating a landscape in which these startups can succeed also means busting preconceived notions and changing hearts and minds.
“When I talk to external stakeholders about how we’re excited about the focus on underrepresented founders, their feedback is always, ‘Oh, so does that mean you’re compromising on quality?’ That’s always very frustrating, but we’re excited to say that [the startups led by underrepresented entrepreneurs] in the portfolio tie or surpass the rest of the portfolio on all the typical external metrics,” Kaneene said.
The 200 startups founded or led by underrepresented entrepreneurs make up 44 percent of SAP.iO’s global portfolio — and they represent half of the unicorns in the portfolio (meaning their valuation exceeds $1 billion), as well as 42 percent of cumulative VC funding. They also “have a greater likelihood to progress in their partnership with SAP,” according the company.
Sadee Gamhewa is the Founder and CEO of Velou, an AI-powered retail technology startup. He has 22 years of industry experience in product and engineering with expertise in data science, AI/ML, and ecommerce. Sadee previously led product, innovation, Machine Learning, AI strategy, and engineering at multiple startups and Fortune 100 companies, including Sysco, Accenture, and Fujitsu. He holds patents in ecommerce and has published research papers on Machine Learning and AI. He received his BSc in Computer Science with First Class Honors from Edith Cowan University, Australia.
1. What is Velou and what do you offer?
Velou is an AI copilot tailored for brands and retailers that automates ecommerce functions, all backed by industry-specific data. Ecommerce teams lose precious time, incur significant expenses, and miss opportunities due to the inefficiency of manual reviews of product catalogs, and blindspots created by lack of access to retail data and analytics. Velou’s AI is fine-tuned for ecommerce to offer industry-specific solutions. It reviews a retailer’s entire product catalog, identifies missing metadata, auto-generates product descriptions, and enriches and standardizes ecommerce data. Velou increases productivity for ecommerce teams and revenue through powerful analytics so retailers know how they’re converting and losing customers.
Our services are available globally with offices in San Francisco, Munich and Paris at Station F through the LVMH accelerator.
2. How does your solution work?
Velou applies three AI technologies to automate and optimize online retailers’ ecommerce business. Velou’s Computer Vision Models automatically analyze product images to identify the product attributes related to things like color, style, fabric, and shape that resonate with shoppers. Combining this technology with our proprietary industry-specific data sets, which serve as the foundational models, Velou’s Product Data Enrichment builds out online retailers’ product pages, automatically creating product descriptions and feeding discovery features. Finally, Velou’s Natural Language Processing uses all this information to understand search phrases that convert more customers, while taking the stress off ecommerce teams.
3. Do customers need special technology/devices to access your service?
Velou is already tightly integrated with the largest ecommerce platforms. Velou does all the work while retailers have full control, so no special technology or expertise is required.
4. Why did you start Velou?
AI in online retail is exciting because it can be applied today. We want ecommerce teams to have control over how it’s working while boosting their efficiency. Velou believes online retail is an ideal application for AI because it addresses two crucial challenges for online retailers: manual management of product catalogs and the need to analyze and optimize conversions and retention.
5. How are you connected to SAP? Can your solution be integrated in SAP systems and if so, how?
Velou is a SAP.iO Rising Stars startup and our solution is available through the SAP Store. You can visit us at the SAP Experience Center in Paris and play around with our demo store!
We work closely with SAP engineering to make the SAP Commerce Cloud + Velou integration seamless. Velou is a one-click deployment. This makes using Velou on the SAP platform super easy!
Anthony Young is a partner and alliances professional with fifteen years experience in the enterprise commerce space. He specializes in developing thriving strategic partnerships that drive mutual success. Anthony has direct experience with SAP having been a member of the Hybris team at the time of their acquisition. He not only helped build out the SAP CX partner ecosystem but spent several years expanding it. In addition to his direct experience with SAP he has also run partnerships at several mid-sized SIs who were focused on the SAP ecosystem.
What is parcelLab and what do you offer?
ParcelLab is a global enterprise post-purchase software provider, we enable brands to increase top-line revenue, decrease operational costs and optimize customer experiences. Our award-winning post-purchase platform powers leading brands like IKEA, Chico’s, H&M, and Yeti to transform mundane operational touchpoints into differentiated and personalized experiences, creating moments of joy for their customers.
Where is parcelLab available?
ParcelLab actively manages the post-purchase experiences across 175 countries and tracks shipping data from more than 350 carriers worldwide. More than 700 brands worldwide across the fashion and apparel, cosmetics, furniture and home goods, electronics, luxury goods, D2C, pharmacy and medical and B2B eCommerce trust parcelLab to deliver superior post-purchase experiences to their customers.
As a digital-first company, parcelLab provides flexible working options to 150+ employees across the globe in over a dozen countries. I am currently based in Montreal, Canada. We have offices in Boston, Munich, London, and Paris.
How does your solution work?
ParcelLab enables brands to deliver unique and personalized customer experiences. Our solution allows brands to have complete control over the post-purchase experience and to leverage existing communications channels to drive further engagement, build stronger communities and do more with data.
The customer journey does not end at checkout. Our solution stays in touch with customers through the entire sales journey, with branded communications that maximize every customer touch point. Whether brands want to provide proactive notifications when there are delivery delays or make it easier for consumers to check order statuses, parcelLab delivers personalized experiences at every touch point.
After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, there’s been a lot of talk about the importance of diversification in finance. In the startup world, though, Kange Kaneene says being able to diversify is “a luxury that some people just don’t have.”
“If you’re going to bank after bank and getting told no, it’s hard to diversify,” the vice president for SAP.io Foundries, the software giant startup accelerator in New York, San Francisco, Latin America and the Caribbean, told MarketWatch. Kaneene said Silicon Valley Bank was “a soft place to land” for many startup founders she called “underestimated,” such as women and people of color. The bank launched a program focused on increasing opportunities for underrepresented people in the “innovation economy,” but the future of that is as cloudy as that of the bank itself.
The venture-capital world, already affected by a tech slowdown and other economic worries before the failure of the bank, is now dealing with even more uncertainty that includes possible long-term effects from a banking crisis. The impact could be worse for VCs and startup founders who are women and/or people of color, a category that already saw a low share of venture funding.
Of all venture-capital funding last year, only 1.9% went to female founders, according to data from PitchBook. Usually, less than 2% of VC funding goes to Black entrepreneurs, according to Crunchbase; last year, while overall venture funding declined 36%, funding to Black-led businesses dropped 45%.
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 leaders 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.
Having someone anticipate your needs before you ask is something of a talent. Waitstaff that refills your glass at a restaurant without being asked, a business offering umbrella’s on a day you’ve forgotten yours, or a friend that drops by with coffee on the morning you’ve run out. Being able to think ahead and predict what your family, friends, or even customers might need is a tricky skill to manage, but useful. Sometimes it is a case of the right place and the right time, as it was with our next inspiring innovator Chandralika Hazarika. Her unique combination of skills and strategic vision allowed her to anticipate a need in the marketplace BEFORE it became critical, thus allowing her company to come ready with a solution as soon as it was sought. Most useful indeed.
With more than 15 years of branding and marketing experience, Chandralika turned her attention to entrepreneurship with a focus on building digitally empowered brands. An architect by education, she always wanted to do something on the creative side of the business with people. While she worked as a branding manager, she gained experience understanding design and working with technical people.
In an instance of the right place, right time, Chandralika met her future co-founder, Shivang Desai, by chance in Bangalore when he was searching for tech talent. With a background in finance and strategy, Shivang had already started three technology companies. The two realized that their strengths were completely different but complementary; thus coming together to create something new would have a great chance of success. Looking to build simple, intuitive high-tech products that are quickly adopted, they came together to form Bigthinx in 2016.
Bigthinx is an artificial intelligence company building software for online fashion retailers, using mobile body scanning, virtual try-ons, and digital twins. Their technology creates a 3D body scan using two full-body photos for precise instant apparel size and fit predictions, creating a personalized virtual avatar that is a digital replica and automates the production of 3D digital clothing from catalog photos at scale. This technology enables try-ons of any clothing virtually to see how it would look and fit as if in reality. These quick, easy, and impactful virtual shopping experiences drive significant reductions in returns and increased conversions for online retailers. Bigthinx works with the world’s largest retailers and fashion brands in the US, Europe, and Asia.
“When you know the body data, that can be shared with the designers, so they design better for the body types in that region. You know, it’s all about impacting the whole supply chain beyond just reducing returns. And in doing so, we would influence fashion design, reduce waste, and create happy retailers and customers!”
At Bigthinx, Chandralika continues to build new ways to put consumers first, still looking to anticipate their needs before they ask. In addition, she is a fashion design enthusiast and owns a fashion label called Velvet Piano. If all of this were not enough, Chandralika also received the distinguished Accenture “Women in Tech” 2021 award.
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 leaders 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.
Starting as a software engineer, she began in RFID technology in the mid-90s with radio frequency identification at the silicon chip and inlay level. Leanne has built a career through evolutionary advancements in supply chain traceability for the past 25 years covering various industry disciplines, founding and exiting three companies before creating at Everledger. Firmly understanding importance of transparency Leanne chose to focus on some of the most challenging industries globally, ultimately deciding to concentrate on conflicted and opaque supply chains.
“Being an entrepreneur, firstly through and through, as well as having an engineering background and understanding the disciplines of business, enabled me to have the perfect triangulation of skill set to be able to take my idea or vision for change and then enable that in such a way where I can craft it with my own hands.”
Everledger helps businesses identify and converge asset information using a combination of secure technologies, including blockchain, AI, and IoT, to create greater clarity and confidence in marketplaces where transparency is a strategic imperative. This trusted transparency platform builds a connected system where reputable people buy, sell & promote assets with verified provenance, authenticity & sustainability data.
In Leanne’s role as the founder and CEO of Everledger, she inspires transparency and trust with technology and has become a prominent figure in the technology sector. Leanne co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Manufacturing and participates in the Global Future Council on Blockchain. In 2018, her entrepreneurial success saw her appointed as the Queensland Chief Entrepreneur in Australia to develop the state’s startup ecosystem, attract investment, and support job creation. She was the first female entrepreneur to hold this position.
French companies lost €70 million in 2021 due to transfer fraud. “Since the beginning, we have avoided 60 million euros of fraud” – Baptiste Collot, CEO Trustpair
Trustpair participated in Foundry Paris Procurement program in 2020.
In a webinar we recorded in Sep 2022, Lior Weizman of SAP.iO met with Kat Wray, Head of Partnerships at Mention Me (an SAP partner), and Nils Siméon, Key Account Executive at SAP Customer Experience, to discuss how brands should better evaluate the value of their customers and how they can even extend it.
It’s not a secret that brands today are facing real challenges with their customer acquisition. The main reasons as of now are:
1. The sunset of third-party data, with Apple iOS updates and recent regulation changes, is causing brands to take a step back in analyzing their acquisition channels.
2. Customer acquisition costs have increased dramatically and are not sustainable. With no or less past data, marketing channels must work a lot harder to get the same results.
3. On the customer side, there is a growing distrust amongst customers on how brands are using their data to target them.
For these main reasons, brands must diversify the acquisition channels they’re using, and prioritized channels that are trusted, authentic and such that capture first party data can used to scale growth. Referral marketing is a great example for such a channel. This is where customers recommend brands to their friends, and when you think about it, it’s the most trusted acquisition channel. According to Mention Me, referral marketing is now a $1 billion market, and will be a $50 billion market by 2040.
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 leaders 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 Chicko SousaIt has been said that Chico Sousa is a Mechanical Engineer by choice, but a specialist in the acceleration of clean production by nature aptly sums up his journey to entrepreneurship. Starting as a mechanical engineer working for Volvo, Chicko was assigned to projects that produced scrap materials needing to be recycled or reimagined. He left Volvo after successfully managing those projects to start a company that built recycling plants in Brazil, creating 13 new plants over 11 years before selling his company in 2013. He then came to Sao Paulo to help the municipality with public projects, generating environmental improvements in the fight against CO2 emissions and plastic use.
From there, Chicko created a YouTube series where he did interviews inside garbage trucks, much like Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”, to raise recycling awareness. The wild success of this web series helped increase the municipality’s recycling rates significantly but created new issues. They started to see problems with permits as they began selling the recycled materials. At this time, Chicko realized a need to control and manage information to produce the proper flow of materials for licensed recycling and founded the company GreenPlat in 2016.
Working with recycling technologies for over 20 years and with software for almost ten years, Chicko created GreenPlat, a clean production SaaS, which today has more than 690,000 companies registered on the platform. Since 2018, GreenPlat has been a part of the World Economic Forum in the Pioneering Technology category, as they were the first company to use blockchain technology for waste traceability. So far, 1 million tons of waste have been managed through their software; all disposed of correctly without polluting the environment. This means a cleaner and healthier environment for all and for businesses, increased visibility into recycling, compliance, and traceability.
“I think this is a worldwide situation where people are done talking and ready to act. We can see this movement, and it is encouraging. We are ready for action; there is no time for waste.”
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.
Taro Sasaki has always enjoyed inventing things, even from a very young age. It is no surprise that his path led him to entrepreneurship, where he uses his love of discovery and educational training to create new businesses. With a background in consulting, Taro decided he wanted a more international perspective, so he attended business school in the United States. After spending two years in the States as a consultant, he returned to Japan, where a colleague shared an opportunity for him to be the CEO of a new beauty discovery eCommerce platform. His next steps led him to launch a new company that also provided goods in the food industry. With a taste for entrepreneurship, Taro decided that he wanted to launch a business that would look to solve problems that could make a difference in his community.
With this goal in mind, Taro Sasaki founded Hacobu. Hacobu developed MOVO, a cloud-based integrated logistics solution and operations management system utilizing in-vehicle terminals. It allows users to connect with carriers and shipping companies online. The platform accumulates distribution data from various companies to optimize the physical distribution system. In doing so, saving time, money, and providing data for properly sourcing suppliers to make the process running efficiently for the end users in communities both small and large. Toyota Industries Corporation, Nestle, and Unilever are just a few companies that utilize Hacobu’s innovative technology.
“It is hard to be an entrepreneur because if you think too logically, you might not take the risk and miss something. You must apply some logic, be smart, but also something you need to be a little crazy.”
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 LynnStarting 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.”
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 ChrisChris Motley grew up on the South Side of Chicago and was fortunate to be a part of organizations that helped put him on a path to access educational opportunities. That access led to graduation from Columbia University with a B.A. in History, and the Kellogg School of Management, with an MBA in Entrepreneurship. Chris founded a global textile manufacturing business where he spent six years leading its expansion into Ghana, Africa, and building its apparel division.
When we asked Chris about what he wanted to be when he grew up, he smiled and listed all the things he thought he might be, ranging from a basketball player to a judge. The takeaway was that Chris wanted to be the things he was exposed to as a child. What he saw, the people he met, and his connections contributed to his journey and gave him a unique way of looking at the world. He would come to learn how important all this was, and it would guide his future focus and desire to give back.
Previously, Chris spent four years at Goldman Sachs as a Commodities and Interest Rate product trader. Upon reflection on his journey, he thought about what people do when they are not exposed or have access to the same opportunities he was afforded. How do you reach your potential if you are not exposed to opportunities? How does one find support, mentors, and resources to learn about what could be?
When Chris asked these questions, he realized there was a need to provide these resources on a much larger scale. After learning a lot on Wall Street and building a company in Ghana, now was the time to launch Mentor Spaces to address the need in the marketplace for mentorship of underrepresented populations. Mentor Spaces is a venture-backed, community-driven mentorship platform designed to help companies scale DEI efforts while advancing the careers of underrepresented talent. The platform facilitates career conversations between employees and prospective candidates to streamline diverse talent acquisition and retention. This technology allows you to have conversations with people who can help you get where you want to go.
“What I found as we did a tremendous amount of research, in addition to my personal story, was that part of the issue is a lack of confidence among underrepresented populations, and part of that lack of confidence is driven by simply not knowing people and vetted resources that would help. We concluded that mentorship is a good way to build confidence and expand one’s network, and what’s unique about our approach is that we look at mentorship as a strategy that helps our customers accomplish their goals. Most companies have shifted to focus on a strategy around talent attraction, advancement, and retention.”
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 PawJust 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.”
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.
