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In Funding Announcement, Supply Chain Management, New York

MaintainX Makes Equipment and Regulatory Downtime a Thing of the Past With $50M in New Funding

MaintainX, the leading maintenance and frontline work execution platform, today announced $50M in Series C funding led by Bain Capital Ventures (BCV) with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Amity Ventures, August Capital and Ridge Ventures. Other strategic new investors include Jeff Immelt the former CEO of GE, Jeff Lawson the CEO of Twilio, Steve Pagliuca a Senior Advisor to Bain Capital, Rob Bernshteyn the CEO of Coupa Software, Chris Comparato the Chairman and CEO of Toast, and Allison Pickens the former COO of Gainsight. The new capital will accelerate the MaintainX feature roadmap, with additional AI-driven predictive capabilities and data-driven functionality. Following the company’s Series B in June 2021, this investment brings total funding to $104 million while achieving a valuation of $1 billion.

The world’s leading manufacturing, industrial, logistics, hospitality and facilities management companies rely on MaintainX to prevent downtime and ensure 24/7 operations. MaintainX prevents costly failures and ensures regulatory compliance by arming teams with the right data, while increasing productivity of maintenance workers and other frontline staff by digitizing workflows.

Fixed assets average 24 years old while still in operation, the highest age since 1947 according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. By better maintaining infrastructure, ensuring preventive maintenance compliance, and providing asset and plant-level data insights, companies using MaintainX achieve higher productivity. As aging infrastructure is replaced, smarter machines generate more data and frontline workers using MaintainX evolve into knowledge workers empowered with the right insights.

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In New York, Supply Chain Management, Awards

Everstream Analytics Named to 2023 ProcureTech100

Everstream Analytics, the global leader in supply chain insights and risk analytics company, announced its inclusion in the prestigious 2023 ProcureTech100 list from ProcureTech and Kearney. This recognition underscores Everstream’s pioneering role in digital procurement technology, providing unrivaled risk analytics and supply chain intelligence that revolutionizes the function in today’s dynamic business landscape.

“The ProcureTech100 are the 100 pioneering digital procurement solutions. Pioneers that are inspiring and driving digital transformation. Pioneers that are customer centric, innovative, high growth and making a social impact. Pioneers that are supercharging procurement, the enterprise and the digital procurement ecosystem.”

Everstream combines billions of supply chain interactions with AI, advanced analytics, and graph technology, to give the world’s leading companies the deepest insight into supply chains, from raw materials to the store shelf. The ProcureTech100 list highlights innovators who are shaping the future of procurement. Everstream, with its groundbreaking n-tier supplier visibility and unmatched supplier scoring sets the benchmark for supply chain optimization.

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In New York, CRM & Customer Experience, Technologies, Foundries

Online Shopping Is Arduous: AI Makes It Easy

While AI isn’t an automatic slam dunk panacea for every business problem, one thing it’s incredibly gifted at is sifting through tons of information to help people quickly find the product of their dreams.

Anyone who’s searched for a product, be it an e-bike, laptop, or washing machine, is all too familiar with choice paralysis from information overload. Imagine instead, landing on a website and conversing with the smartest salesperson in the world available 24/7, who asks the right questions to give you the right product as fast as possible. Meet Zoovu, an AI-powered platform that helps B2C and B2B companies match customers with the exact product they’re looking for.

“Our cloud-based AI product discovery platform helps customers connect to their customers by surfacing the right product,” said Lamees Butt, senior vice president of global alliances and channels at Zoovu. “We remove choice paralysis by simulating the kind of in-store shopping experience that you would get with the most knowledgeable salesperson.”

Butt said that global brands, retailers, and manufacturers realize on average a 200% conversion uplift in customer purchases, and an increase in average cart value by 47%. One power tool company increased customer engagements by an estimated 65% in over 35 global markets.

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In New York, CRM & Customer Experience

Zoovu is a Lead Partner in SAP Industry Cloud

The partnership is expanding as global companies increasingly look to unlock new revenue streams and reduce direct sales costs through more automated and intelligent e-commerce platforms. Until now, the complexity and number of products offered by most manufacturers and large-scale B2B organizations required highly skilled sales teams to educate customers and convert inquiries into sales. By harnessing the power of SAP and Zoovu technology, customers can easily transform large, complex product catalogs into highly accurate and continuously optimized digital sales environments.

Zoovu was invited to join the SAP.iO Acceleration Partner Program last year and the platform quickly jumped to the top 2% in the SAP® Store. Building on this strong market demand, Zoovu has been elevated to SAP partner for SAP’s industrial cloud portfolio.

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In New York, CRM & Customer Experience

Retail Trends: Eco-Friendly Online Shopping To Top $100 Billion

Five years from now, none of us will go through a product checkout experience and not have the option to make our purchase carbon neutral. That’s how Dane Baker, co-founder and CEO of EcoCart, predicts the sustainable future of e-commerce.

His company, EcoCart, partners with brands and retailers to power a carbon-neutral and climate positive shopping experience. The app calculates the carbon footprint of products, giving consumers the opportunity to offset the emissions at checkout through brand-sponsored sustainability projects.

“We’re making it easy for consumers to take climate action in a frictionless way as they go about their daily lives,” said Baker. “Working with a global network of partners, we help brands strengthen customer relationships and loyalty. Shoppers have a deeper affinity with organizations that act on their shared commitment to sustainability.”

Brands of all sizes worldwide are using EcoCart to increase conversion rates and repeat purchases. A premium skin care product organization boosted repeat purchase rates by 50%. A fast-growing plant-based nutritional supplements company increased online cart conversions by 22%. One sustainable furniture company’s average order value (AOV) skyrocketed by 38%.

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In New York, Supply Chain Management

Leveraging SAP’s Industry Cloud, Going from Concept to Commercialization Can Be Fast and Fulfilling

 

As recently as late 2020, Cogniac was a little-known Silicon Valley startup with promising artificial intelligence (AI)-driven computer vision (CV) technology and a big-time opportunity to find new markets for that technology via the SAP.iO program.

Fast forward two-and-half years to the spring of 2023, and not only has Cogniac found a strong market for its technology, it has earned a place among the vanguard of enterprise-class CV software, having been recognized by analyst firm IDC as a leader in the field alongside the likes of AWS, Google, and Microsoft.

How does a company ascend so far, so fast? In the case of San Jose, California-based Cogniac, it couldn’t have happened without superior technology, a partnership-driven mindset, and an openness to work with SAP to develop an industry cloud solution that readily integrates with the SAP portfolio to bring more value to customers.

Cogniac’s Visual Operations Intelligence platform is one of more than 300 apps and integrated end-to-end solutions developed within SAP’s industry cloud and is available to customers across multiple industry verticals in SAP Store. Cogniac’s technology also has been integrated into the SAP Digital Manufacturing solution, providing AI-enabled visual inspection capabilities for the shop floor to customers in a range of industries.

Cogniac is among a wave of up-and-coming companies that are blazing a trail for other independent developers to follow, showing how to leverage the expertise and resources of SAP and system integrator partners to quickly scale up and monetize their intellectual property and technology. It’s all part of SAP’s “one-portfolio” approach, which is rooted in the belief that by working together, companies that are actively engaged in SAP’s industry cloud – including independent developers, global and regional services partners, and others – can create solutions that generate more value for customers and themselves than they otherwise would working individually. The one-portfolio approach is first and foremost about solving customers’ business problems, whether the solution comes from an SAP partner, SAP itself, or a combination of the two.

In Cogniac’s case, the solution was born from the SAP.iO program and, following a successful pilot project involving automotive parts production, it’s now fully commercialized for customers in travel and transportation, automotive manufacturing, mill and mining, industrial manufacturing, and other verticals seeking to upgrade and automate their visual inspection capabilities for quality management and maintenance.

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In CRM & Customer Experience, New York

Zoovu Chosen as Lead Partner in SAP’s Industry Cloud to Help Customers Digitize their Sales Environments

Zoovu, the AI-powered product discovery and e-commerce experience platform leader, announced it has been selected by SAP as its recommended industry cloud solution for manufacturers looking to accelerate their digital transformation in product sales and self-service procurement.

The partnership is expanding as global companies increasingly look to unlock new revenue streams and lower direct selling costs through more automated and intelligent e-commerce platforms. Until now, given the complexity and number of products offered by most manufacturers and large-scale B2B organizations, deeply knowledgeable sales teams were required to educate customers and convert inquiries into sales. By harnessing the power of SAP and Zoovu technology, customers can easily transform large, complex product catalogs into highly accurate and continuously optimized digital selling environments.

Zoovu was invited last year to join the SAP.iO Acceleration Partner Program and the platform quickly jumped to within the top 2% of performers in the SAP® Store. Building upon this strong market demand, Zoovu has been elevated to an SAP partner for SAP’s industry cloud portfolio.

“Our customers are realizing significant cost savings and revenue growth by bringing their complex product offerings into a digital commerce environment powered by Zoovu,” said Stephan G. Braun, Executive Industry Advisor, SAP. “We look forward to continued collaboration with the Zoovu team to help customers with this business transformation,” he added.

“We are excited about deepening our SAP partnership and helping global B2B customers create significant business value with our AI-driven platform,” said Lamees Butt, Senior Vice President, Global Alliances & Channels, Zoovu. “SAP is the leader in helping companies drive business transformation and we are honored to have been chosen as their lead partner in solving these sales-enablement problems, especially for the manufacturing sector,” she added.

The no-code Zoovu cloud platform integrates seamlessly with the SAP Business Technology Platform, allowing B2B and D2C customers to automate product data cleansing, standardization, solution bundling, and intelligent product searches from disparate data sources, including PDFs, PIMs, CRMs, even YouTube product videos. Zoovu’s AI-driven platform then applies its product ontology, syntax and sales insight gleaned from more than 70,000 product categories to ensure buyers are always presented with exactly the right product. It’s guided selling tools, assistants, and product configurators can then create powerful self-service customer experiences at scale.

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In New York, Supply Chain Management

How To De-Risk Supply Chains In An Unpredictable World

Supply chain collaboration is one of those every day business terms that’s easy to dismiss until a catastrophic disruption strikes like material shortages, product design flaws, production delays, and more. But what if organizations across the supply chain could quickly huddle to pinpoint problems and take action together, staving off anything from minor setbacks to potential disaster? This is the concept behind Inspectorio, a cloud-based solution designed to help suppliers, manufacturers, brands, and retailers work together to reduce supply chain risk through digitalized quality management, ESG compliance, production tracking, and lab testing.

“Automating activities on a centralized data platform helps companies make fast and strategic adjustments in a way that is incredibly collaborative with their supplier base,” said David Klein, president and co-founder of Inspectorio. “Organizations can become more agile and resilient to supply chain disruptions, able to shift sources, product materials, and production locations to address problems and improve productivity and efficiencies.”

After digitalizing manual activities on Inspectorio, Klein said that organizations have averaged 95% time savings in administrative data entry, and 100% time savings in reporting. Customers have improved quality pass rates by approximately 8% on average. Some have reduced defect rates by 14% on average.

Digitizing quality control for accuracy and efficiency

Quality management spans numerous groups, including factories that conduct self-inspections and third-party inspectors who visit facilities. According to Klein, digitizing quality management activities helps suppliers, retailers, and others work together on standardized quality control. Inspectorio incorporates artificial intelligence to monitor facility risk, leading to valuable business insights and cost-savings.

“With data integrity, you can better understand your supplier base and benchmark their performance,” said Klein. “When you designate factories and products by risk factor, you can adapt quality controls appropriately. For example, maybe lower-risk factories can manage self-inspections on their own. High-risk factories producing high-risk products require tighter controls. Over time, you’re able to maximize your resources and lower costs while increasing quality outcomes.”

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In Supply Chain Management, Announcements, New York, Featured

SAP.iO Foundry New York Kicks Off Supply Chain Management Program

May 24, 2023 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today launched the 2023 program focused on innovation in supply chain management at SAP.iO Foundry New York. The 10 startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers, and investment funds to join the program. 60 percent of the startups are led by underrepresented individuals. 

 A strong digital supply chain strategy is largely a “behind-the-scenes” organizational function. It can differentiate and enable companies to improve efficiency, effectiveness and be resilient to disruption in the supply chain. The SAP.iO program targets B2B startups with innovative supply chain solutions looking to integrate their solutions with SAP products including SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP Supply Chain Management software. ​ 

During the 5-month program, the selected startups work to build and develop long-term partnerships with SAP by defining joint use cases, product integration and various business development opportunities. SAP customers will evaluate opportunities for proof of concepts. 

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry New York 2023 program: 

  1. AutoScheduler.AI creates optimal warehouse plans and feeds them directly into the warehouse management system (WMS), dynamically optimizing activities based on constraints to ensure that each site runs at peak performance. 
  2. DARVIS simplifies and automates processes using computer vision and geo-referencing for logistics and healthcare.
  3. Everstream Analytics delivers predictive insights and risk analytics businesses need to build smarter, more autonomous and sustainable supply chains. 
  4. MaintainX combines an intuitive mobile app and cloud technology to enable maintenance, operations, and safety teams to easily manage maintenance work orders, parts inventory, safety inspections, and other standard operating procedures in a single platform.  
  5. Morpheus.Network’s solutions help cargo owners, logistics service providers, and government agencies digitize, optimize, and automate their extended global supply chains. 
  6. Parsable is a connected workforce platform that digitizes frontline operations and empowers industrial leaders to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve sustainability.
  7. Partsimony enables organizations to build intelligent manufacturing supply chains that are more resilient and sustainable by unifying engineering and supply chain data.
  8. Transmute‘s Verifiable Data Platform (VDP) digitizes the documents involved in global trade into verifiable credentials to streamline regulatory compliance, maximize business agility, and reintroduce identity, trust, and meaning into supply chains. 
  9. Vendia provides a data collaboration platform that increases supply chain visibility and enables real-time actions by all participants.
  10. Versed AI‘s cutting-edge AI delivers relevant, rapid and secure supply chain visibility, pinpointing your risks across multiple tiers.

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO curates a relevant and diverse startup ecosystem that extends the value of SAP solutions and meets the continuously evolving needs of our customers. Our programs provide dedicated support to the most promising startups as they launch and scale relationships with SAP and our global network of customers, partners, and employees. Since 2017, we have connected thousands of SAP customers with innovative enterprise software startups, helping them find solutions to their unique needs. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.  

In New York, CRM & Customer Experience

Zoovu Doubles Down on SAP Commerce Partnership in 2023

Following an incredibly successful 2022 with the Zoovu + SAP Partnership that included participating in the Spring 2022 SAP.iO accelerator program, becoming the first technology partner to hit #1 in the SAP Store history within 2 months of launching, and presenting a keynote at TechEd, 2023 has started out equally as strong. In January, we had the opportunity to not only exhibit in SAP’s Partner Village at NRF, but also presented alongside joint customer, Bosch Power Tools, to tell their story of combining Zoovu’s Product Discovery Platform with SAP’s Enterprise technology to fuel a global digital transformation.

As Q1 comes to a close, we wanted to take some time to reflect on the value of technology partners, why SAP & Zoovu complement each other, and what “doubling down” on partnerships means to us. Zoovu’s new CMO, Ken Yanhs, sat down with Lamees Butt, our SVP of Channel Partners & Alliances to discuss the partnership as of today and what the future of the partnership looks like.

Read Q&A Here…

In CRM & Customer Experience, New York

How is AR/3D Technology Driving Next-Gen Ecommerce Best Practices?

Retailers that prioritize ecommerce recognize that the end-to-end user experience is more important than ever. Consumers expect convenient, interactive shopping experiences, from online to in-store and everything in between. This year, 3D and AR adoption is expected to be one of the biggest trends for providing next-gen ecommerce experiences, especially for apparel and footwear brands looking to bring the physical world to digital shopping.

As a result, more brands need to look for ways to incorporate 3D and AR tech into their omnichannel strategy.

Where Does AR/3D Currently Stand?

As with all next-gen tech, there have been some early adopters, especially in the realm of fashion, footwear and accessories, that are already employing 3D and AR to enhance the ecommerce experience. For example, Nike now has Nike Fit, a mobile shopping feature that helps customers find their perfect shoe fit using their smartphone camera. Utilizing 3D scanning tech, the app is then able to create a 3D model of their feet to help them better find the right shoes to fit their desired style and function.

On the B2B side, Merrell is using 3D and AR tech to sell their products via digital showrooms, prior to manufacturing and shipping, to increase speed to market, reduce costs and lower their carbon footprint.

The furniture and home goods space is another sector of the market that’s seeing increased applications of this technology. Brands like Wayfair and Ikea offer their mobile users an AR feature that allows them to use their phone’s camera to virtually preview how an item would look in their home, true to size.

Outside of day-to-day consumer uses, many brands, especially luxury labels like Gucci, Hermès and Balenciaga, are experimenting with 3D and AR tech to engage with consumers in the metaverse. In 2021 Balenciaga dropped a digital collection for Fortnite, an online video game by Epic Games, which featured digital outfits inspired by some of their real-life designs and products. Fans who purchased the physical product could then unlock the digital versions or choose to purchase the digital versions with virtual currency to use as clothing and skins for their Fortnite avatars. $50 billion was spent on in-game purchases in 2022 and this figure is expected to continue to grow, so every brand should be looking at ways to have a presence in virtual worlds like Fortnite and Roblox that have large user bases.

No matter the use case, these brands are bridging the gap between the digital and physical shopping experience to meet potential customers wherever they may be — at home, on the go or engaged with the metaverse. These early adopters are already reaping the benefits of using 3D and AR tech as part of their omnichannel strategy.

What Are the Benefits to Brands that Implement 3D and AR Tech?

In today’s digital age, customers expect a seamless and engaging experience when shopping online, and brands that fail to deliver risk losing customers to competitors that are delivering more innovative approaches in their ecommerce strategy. Though 3D and AR implementation is still in its earlier stages, it is a great way to stand out in today’s crowded marketplace. Additionally, there are other benefits of utilizing 3D and AR tech

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In New York, CRM & Customer Experience

Yellow.ai launches Dynamic Automation Platform (DAP) with Generative AI

Yellow.ai, a global leader in Conversational AI, announced the launch of its Dynamic Automation Platform (DAP), powered by generative AI, that enables enterprises to automate customer and employee experiences at scale with 60% reduction in their operational costs. The company also revealed a new logo as part of a rebranding strategy that reflects its vision of delivering human-like conversational experiences to accelerate enterprise growth.

With a 4X growth rate in North America and an established market presence in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East markets, Yellow.ai has emerged as an industry leader since its inception in 2016. The rebranding marks a crucial milestone in the company’s growth journey and reinforces its commitment to using technology, such as generative AI, to fuel innovative solutions for enterprises across its Conversational Service Cloud, Conversational Commerce Cloud, and Conversational EX Cloud product suites.

“At Yellow.ai, we strongly believe in the potential of generative AI to enhance our capabilities, foster innovation, and drive business growth. We are investing heavily in domain-specific LLMs to facilitate dynamic content creation, providing our customers with a comprehensive experience through our enterprise-grade Dynamic AI agents. Our customer-centric approach and our strong focus on generative AI are reflected in our rebranding efforts, as we remain committed to delivering the best next-generation Conversational AI solutions.”

The company is combining generative AI technology with DAP which runs on its proprietary and multi-Large Language Model (LLM) AI engine, DynamicNLP™. With 100+ integrations, 150+ pre-built marketplace templates, and the recently launched Dynamic Conversation Designer, businesses leveraging DAP for Yellow.ai’s suite of solutions can go live with their deployments 2X faster.

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In New York, CRM & Customer Experience

Obsess unveils Carbon Emissions Calculator for brands evaluating construction of new physical stores

Obsess has launched a Carbon Emissions Calculator for brands to analyse the energy output for bricks and mortar retail stores in comparison to their virtual counterparts.

The company has created 200+ virtual stores for brands including Ralph Lauren, Coach, NBCUniversal, American Girl, and Charlotte Tilbury.

Retailers can input into the tool flexible values for physical store estimates, including store square footage, daily foot traffic, and number of employees.

Based on these inputs, Obsess calculates the average output for store construction (including material production and transportation, and construction activities) and the average output for store operations (including employee labor, commute and store electricity).

Carbon emissions calculations are based on initial construction and one year of operations for both brick sand mortar and virtual stores. Outbound product shipments are not included in the calculation. Corporate employee and office operations have also been excluded.

Check out the calculator here.

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