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In Uncategorized, Foundries, Featured, Business Technology Platform, Inspiring Innovators

Inspiring Innovators: Neha Singh Founder and CEO of Obsess, On Listening to Your Gut

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 Neha Singh

Her unique path to entrepreneurship included combining her experiences with her ability to listen to her instincts and trust herself to know what to do. Neha Singh combined her love of fashion with her knowledge of technology to create something entirely new for the market, finding her right fit as the Founder and CEO of Obsess.

Neha studied computer science during undergrad and then attended MIT for her masters. Her appreciation for computer science gave her a way to build the things she imagined, prizing the logical aspect of how inputting a set of instructions can result in predictable outcomes. Her accomplishments are many; for Google, she was on the team that created the first dashboard for Google Ad Words. She then spent time on Google News which she described as an amazing learning experience. At this point, she realized she liked the product side, specifically figuring out how to build something and defining it based on how users interact with it.

Neha took fashion design classes discovering she would excel on the technology side of fashion. When she joined an eCommerce marketplace startup, she realized that all eCommerce sites look the same and have a grid-of-thumbnails database interface. This was because that’s the template the eCommerce platforms provide brands and retailers to showcase their products.

After that experience, Neha was the Head of Product at Vogue and worked on projects for launching the Vogue digital properties, including Vogue.com and Vogue Runway. She saw how much luxury brands were struggling with their online eCommerce experience and especially their mobile experience.

As more brands move online and look to differentiate their experience to engage consumers, Neha knew things had to change. To spearhead this effort, Neha launched Obsess in 2017, creating the next-generation eCommerce interface for today’s consumers. Obsess is a Metaverse Shopping Platform that enables brands and retailers to create highly interactive, visual, and branded Virtual Stores on their websites and metaverse platforms. The Obsess platform creates HD-quality, beautiful, photorealistic 3D 360 experiences that increase awareness, engagement, and conversion. Her team combines expertise in platform engineering, consumer web, mobile tech, fashion, e-commerce, gaming, and 3D. Obsess customers include Coach, Ralph Lauren, Charlotte Tilbury, Mattel, General Mills, and NBC Universal among others.

“When your entire brand gets reduced to four to six thumbnails on a mobile screen, you cannot translate the brand experience you are creating in retail stores, fashion shows, and events, into a digital shopping format. That’s when I understood the need in the market for a better digital shopping experience.”

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In Foundries, Tel Aviv, Featured, Sustainability, Announcements

SAP.iO Launches Carbon Accounting Startup Program to Help Customers Enhance Sustainability Efforts

October 19, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) launched a virtual startup program focused on carbon accounting at the SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv. A jury of SAP experts, partners, investment funds, and SAP customers, including ABInBev, DSV Global Transport and Logistics, and more, selected six international startups to join the program and build partnerships with SAP.

The increased awareness of sustainability has impacted consumers and investors alike. They are more and more choosing socially and environmentally responsible companies that consider their impact on people and the planet in their business activities. The finance sector continues to evolve as people and businesses transform how they spend, save, borrow, and invest.

SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv introduced the “Carbon Accounting” program to help customers enhance their sustainability efforts. The startups will work with the Foundry team as well as leading companies from various fields on integration and partnership with SAP.

Gunther Rothermel, Senior Vice President and Head of SAP Sustainability Engineering, “Data is a critical driver toward sustainability success. Enterprise data collection is a challenge where SAP helps its customers on their journey to Net Zero. It is about using the right tools and the latest innovation to achieve this goal.”

During the program, 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 worldwide. This includes creating new partnerships and value propositions.

The following startups are participating in the program:

  1. Connect Earth offers API-based data products that track the carbon footprint of financial transactions.
  2. ESGgo leverages machine learning to analyze and optimize enterprise environmental, social and governance (ESG) posture and score.
  3. ESG Enterprise provides integrated SaaS and data analytics for businesses to reduce compliance costs, automate carbon accounting, data collection, and reporting.
  4. SustainCert enables the digital verification of impact claims across carbon markets and value chains, bringing credibility to climate action.
  5. Sustain.Life enables companies to easily measure, manage and report their ESG impacts for shareholders and regulatory disclosure requirements and requests using global regulatory frameworks.
  6. Unravel Carbon helps companies track and reduce their carbon emissions, specializing in Scope 3.

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

In Awards

Geek+ and CASETiFY’s Smart Factory Wins the HKIE MIS Gold Award for Reindustrialization

Geek+, the global leader in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), is proud to announce that it has won the Gold Award in the Reindustrialization category of the HKIE MIS Industry Awards 2022 for its smart factory solution together with CASETiFY. The HKIE MIS Industry Awards are presented by the Manufacturing, Industrial, and Systems (MIS) division of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers (HKIE) to reward excellence in enhancing manufacturing productivity, product quality, and innovation in real industrial settings.

Lit Fung, VP and Managing Director of Geek+, said: “We are honored to win this award for the cutting-edge solution we developed with CASETiFY. We understand the pain point of high uncertainty in customized production and developed this smart factory solution to help CASETiFY improve their digital capabilities, increase efficiency, and achieve real flexible manufacturing.”

As a global tech accessory brand producing cases for a wide range of smartphones, tablets, and laptops, CASETiFY sought to upgrade its production line and warehouse to fulfill the ever-faster demand for customized products. Geek+ designed a smart factory and warehousing system using its tote-to-person RoboShuttle to reduce management costs and enable multiple-line customized production.

Ocean To, Operations Director at CASETiFY, said: “Working on reindustrialization in Hong Kong is not easy; it requires clever, modern solutions. This collaboration with Geek+ brings flexible and efficient operations to our smart factory and has created a highly successful smart manufacturing facility. Thanks to all co-workers and teammates who devoted their effort and time to the project.”

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In Foundries, New York, Featured, HR & People Engagement, Announcements

SAP.iO Foundry New York Kicks Off Web3 in Future of Work Program

October 17, 2022 — SAP SE‘s (NYSE: SAP) SAP.iO Foundry New York has launched its latest startup program focused on Web3 in the Future of Work with SAP SuccessFactors. Five startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers, and venture capital funds to join the program.

The startups selected for the program center on emerging technologies, including blockchain, token economy (NFTs), digital assets (crypto, wallets, identity), artificial intelligence (AI), and metaverse (augmented and virtual reality). Over the next 12 weeks, they 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 worldwide.

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry New York Fall 2022 program:

  1. Beem enables communication using real humans in augmented reality, allowing users to communicate in the most credible and immersive way possible.
  2. BitPay builds enterprise-grade tools to send and receive cryptocurrencies, enabling employees to receive a portion of their pay in crypto.
  3. Gmetri is a no-code browser-based metaverse toolkit, providing the complete web 3.0 infrastructure to create, publish and track your own metaverse.
  4. Talespin is building a spatial computing learning platform to power talent development and skills mobility for the future of work. ­­
  5. Veremark runs faster and smoother background checks with secure, reusable data through blockchain-based verified credentials.

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

In Awards, Berlin, ERP & Finance

Top Innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Powered Startups Based in Canada (2022)

Artificial intelligence is transforming the innovation landscape around the world. There are numerous instances of startups leveraging AI to address issues of all sizes. In this article, they look at MindBridge Analytics, an SAP.iO startup from the Foundry Berlin program.

MindBridge enables financial professionals to access improved working methods by discovering, surfacing, and assessing risk across large financial datasets. The application integrates audit and finance experience with data science and AI innovation to support professional judgment and meet financial openness needs. MindBridge’s patented platform helps users trust their figures and lessen ambiguity by offering crucial insights into the company’s financials.

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In ERP & Finance, Supply Chain Management, Business Technology Platform, Sustainability

World Food Day 2022: Agritech Serves Up Farm To Fork Revolution

World Food Day on October 16 this year presents an urgent roll-up-your-sleeves challenge as we face a global food crisis as never before. The United Nations estimates there will be 9.8 billion people on this planet by 2050. Meantime crop yields have plummeted to record lows and food prices are hitting record highs, while fallout from the pandemic, extreme weather, and geopolitical conflicts continue disrupting supply chains worldwide. Nevertheless, a committed nucleus of agribusiness startups and established leaders are innovating to feed the planet’s growing population in a healthy, sustainable manner.

Data intelligence is rock against food insecurity

Companies across the value chain in the agricultural industry are turning to data in their quest for predictability. Some food processing companies are working closely with farmers to improve operations that meet regulatory emission targets and corporate sustainability KPIs, while gaining efficiencies and increasing crop yields. Climate change imperatives are only increasing the urgency to take action.

“Traditional, experienced-based farming is not viable in today’s highly dynamic world,” said Andreas Heckmann, executive vice president and head of customer solution support and innovation at SAP. “Food processing organizations need intelligence from integrated data to increase farming efficiencies. One example is SAP Intelligent Agriculture, where agribusiness organizations including farmers and other partners, share and interpret real-time data from sensors, weather stations, and satellite imagery to better understand when to plant, irrigate, grow, and harvest crops for higher yields, cost-savings, and sustainability.”

Climate intelligence boost crop yields

Real and near real-time intelligence is fast becoming a bulwark against climate change threats. One SAP partner, a Chilean-based startup called Agranimo, collects and analyzes data from climate and soil sensors and satellite images. This intelligence is designed to help growers better forecast and increase farm yields, reduce water and fertilizer consumption, and assess climate risks. With consolidated climate and soil information, growers can improve crop management strategies, including pest and disease management, for more accurate yield forecasts, as well as environmental sustainability. For example, commercial farmers can adapt irrigation to plant needs and use less water, or act quickly to protect plants from extreme weather. Agranimo participated in the Industry 4.0 cohort of SAP.iO Foundry Berlin, the company’s global B2B accelerator.

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In Supply Chain Management, Shanghai

AI-LINK Closes a New Strategic Round of Financing with Participation from AsiaInfo and Singtel Innov8

AI-LINK, a new digital infrastruture provider focused on industrial sites, recently announced the closing of a new strategic funding round led by AsiaInfo with participation from Singtel Innov8. The funds raised will be mainly used for product innovation and technology iteration, as well as rapid promotion and commercial deployment of new digital solutions to improve AI-LINK’s global business landscape.

As the idea of sustainable development being widely embraced, performing digital transition has been a popular strategy applied by major countries all over the world to seize the opportunity of technology revolution and industrial transformation. It is even more impressive that in the process of IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) development, the full connection, integration and processing of production factors led by the deep integration of OICT (Operational Information Communication Technology) has made remarkable results in sustainable development, reducing carbon emissions as well as improving quality and efficiency, which has become a consensus among communication software industry and telecom operators worldwide.

AI-LINK focuses on 5G edge intelligence and OICT convergence in industrial sites, providing end-to-end Local 5G products, lightweight industrial edge intelligence centers and open application management platforms to meet industrial customers’ needs of one-stop, low-cost and scenario-based solutions. AI-LINK is committed to building new ICT infrastructure for industrial sites as well as empowering the digital development of industry.

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In Announcements, Foundries, Munich, Featured

SAP.iO Launches Industry 4.0 Startup Program to Drive Startup Innovation in Collaboration with Accenture

October 11, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) is collaborating with Accenture on a virtual startup program focused on Industry 4.0 and based at the SAP.iO Foundry Munich. A jury of experts from SAP and Accenture, alongside SAP partners and customers evaluated numerous applicants and selected 11 startups to join the program.

Various factors are forcing companies to relocate their production back to their core markets. The pandemic, for example, has shown how vulnerable global supply chains are to disruption. In addition, extreme weather events such as droughts, forest fires or floods are increasing and putting even more strain on production. The unreliable supply chain requires companies to open new, highly automated production facilities to meet demand in a timely manner. SAP and Accenture are committed to helping companies create and discover new innovations that drive the total reinvention of supply chain processes.

During the five-month program, SAP will work with the selected startups to integrate and jointly offer solutions for this new manufacturing and production reality. The startups will receive curated mentorship, access to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and exposure to SAP and Accenture customers such as Siemens and BMW with the opportunity to develop high-impact proofs of concept.

“At SAP, we are always on the lookout for transformative solutions that address key customer pain points”, said Shwetha Shetty, Product Owner, Digital Supply Chain Solutions at SAP. “We are excited to team up with Accenture and build this new cohort to help customers realize the promise of Industry 4.0 technologies at scale.”

The following startups are participating in the Industry 4.0 program:

  1. 36Zero is a vision solution that revolutionizes visual inspection by replacing hardware with software, improving inspection results by 1800% and empowering workers for easy and independent installation – better, quicker, more efficient.
  2. aiomatic has developed a digital maintenance assistant to help maintenance engineers in large productions reducing unplanned downtimes using explainable AI.
  3. Aisight develops AI-powered sensors for predictive maintenance to eliminate machine failures and avoid downtime.
  4. Andonix optimizes factory efficiencies through Smart Work Station, a digital hotline and factory collaboration platform that connects machines with frontline workers and supervisors.
  5. Cintoo bridges the gap between reality capture and building information modeling or digital twins. Its SaaS platform Cintoo Cloud manages 3D scanned data collected from the built environment to enable collaborative asset management workflows.
  6. Ecoplant helps industrial organizations reduce electricity consumption and CO2 emissions as well as improves operational efficiency and profitability using IoT and AI.
  7. Kreatize is a leading cloud manufacturing procurement platform that enables mechanical engineering companies to handle the entire process from ordering to delivery of industrial components in a digital, fully transparent and sustainable manner.
  8. Sparetech provides transparency for industrial spare parts that enables companies to automate their spare parts management processes, thereby reducing inventories, costs, and CO2 emissions. 
  9. Surveily allows businesses to automatically monitor and understand what happens on their CCTV cameras observing people, vehicles and processes – 24/7, automatically and in real time.
  10. ThroughPut, Inc. provides an AI-powered supply chain software that predicts demand, reorients production capacity, reassigns warehouse space, and reorders materials optimally for better business, operational, financial and sustainability outcomes.
  11. Zerynth helps companies digitalize their production processes and develop connected industrial products through a plug-and-play IoT platform.

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

In Foundries, Paris

New SAP.iO Foundry Paris Promotion Shapes the Future of Retail

The eighth edition of the SAP.iO Foundry Paris program extends the company’s commitment to startups, with this round focused on the retail experience. The final selection of participating startups has just been announced, with the support program to begin in October and continue until the beginning of 2023. Odilia von Zitzewitz, Interim Lead SAP.iO Foundry Paris, said: “The start-up members of this new cohort respond in an innovative way to issues that fully concern the future of our consumption patterns. It is exciting to see them in action and to imagine building positive solutions for the future together.”

Read Original Article Here…

In Foundries, Awards

Geek+’s PopPick wins European Product Design Award

Geek+, the global leader in autonomous mobile robots, has been awarded the 2022 European Product Design Award in the Industrial Robot category for its innovative PopPick solution.

Geek+ co-founder and VP of Picking and Smart Warehouse Products, Kai Liu, said: “The PopPick solution represents the evolution of the goods-to-person technology that Geek+ has worked so hard to become the leader in. We are extremely proud to have been recognized with this award. Occasions such as this are a validation that we are meeting the high goals we set for ourselves.”

Geek+ has established itself as the most innovative automation solutions provider, with goods-to-person technologies forming the backbone of its success. PopPick, launched in early 2022, is already being deployed in warehouses in Asia and the United States. The PopPick system comprises picking robots carrying movable shelves from storage locations to PopPick workstations where intelligent robotic arms present totes or boxes to the operator. The system can increase picking speed to up to 650 totes per hour, improve warehouse storage density by 50%, and double throughput capacity.

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In Foundries, Awards

Bidgely Selected as 2022 S&P Platts Global Energy Awards Finalist

Bidgely has been named a finalist in the 24th Annual Platts Global Energy Awards. The 2022 Finalists were announced by event host S&P Global Commodity Insights, the leading independent provider of information, analysis and benchmark prices for commodities, metals, petrochemicals, energy and energy transition markets. Often described as “the Oscars of the energy industry,” the Platts Global Energy Awards recognize corporate and individual innovation, leadership and exemplary performance in 19 categories spanning the entire energy and chemicals complex.

“We are honored to be named a finalist in the ‘Grid Edge’ category for the second consecutive year – recognized for our commitment to advancing today’s electric grid,” said Gautam Aggarwal, chief revenue officer for Bidgely. “We’re proud to support our utility partners with behind-the-meter intelligence that turns the impending wave of EVs into an opportunity for creating a more reliable, cleaner grid.”

Most notable in today’s evolving energy grid is the rise of electric vehicles (EV) and global clean energy commitments, with global EV sales expected to surge from 3.1 million in 2020 to 14 million in 2025. Bidgely’s EV Solution leverages applied artificial intelligence (AI) to first identify homes with EVs across entire service territories and then offer a personalized customer journey that educates consumers about their charging patterns and energy consumption. Bidgely EV Solution deployments with Avangrid’s United Illuminating and other leading utility providers are being recognized by S&P Global Commodity Insights for alleviating grid congestion, supporting high energy demands from EV charging and more.

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In Foundries, Featured, Sustainability, Announcements, Latin America

SAP.iO Foundry Latin America Kicks Off Sustainability in Agriculture Program

October 6, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today launched its very first program focused on sustainability in agriculture at SAP.iO Foundry Latin America. Seven startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers, and investment funds to join the program.

The selected startups innovate on efficient and sustainable farming and optimizing agricultural logistics processes. Over the next 16 weeks, they 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 Latin America Fall 2022 program:

  1. Altum Lab (Chile) predicts the quality of raw material months in advance using AI and makes suggestions on how to use it in the production process to satisfy commercial contracts.
  2. CargoSnap (Brazil) is a mobile app that enables businesses to easily perform visual cargo inspections, resulting in less claims, less damage and happier customers.
  3. DigiFarmz (Brazil) provides smart agronomic recommendations for higher yield, profitability, and risk mitigation with less environmental impact.
  4. Drivin (Chile) optimizes deliveries and reduces transportation costs by delivering efficiency and visibility to every process, simplifying management and optimizing the transportation and distribution operations.
  5. goFlux (Brazil) digitizes the entire logistics process, including qualifying carriers, pre-approving suppliers and providing ways of negotiating freight, managing the entire process from contracting, operations to the payment process to the carrier.
  6. Solena Ag (Mexico) turns soil data into diagnostics insights through its proprietary AI engine that provides customized recommendations, helping farmers increase nutrients, productivity, and profitability, while reducing their carbon footprint.
  7. Woocar (Argentina) combines AI and behavioral sciences to improve efficiency, safety, and sustainability in transportation while reducing the carbon footprint and operational inefficiencies.

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

In CRM & Customer Experience, New York, Funding Announcement

EcoCart drives $14.5M of new funding into its sustainable shopping experience

With all the plastic and paper covering the things we buy, more and more consumers are seeking out companies that operate more sustainably.

EcoCart has built an infrastructure for e-commerce companies and works with them to make that shopping experience more transparent and sustainable. Here’s how it works: The three-year-old software company performs product life cycle audits for its customers to help them calculate, analyze and offset their carbon emissions.

Customers can then see how that company is doing in terms of protecting trees and using clean energy sources while companies can offer offsetting initiatives within its shopping experience — for example, providing a way for them to make carbon-neutral purchases or showing the number of trees saved from an order.

“Consumers are looking for ways to shop sustainably, but brands don’t have a great way of being able to communicate that to their customers or execute on that in an inexpensive, easy-to-understand way, and that’s all the things that we help with,” EcoCart co-founder Dane Baker told TechCrunch.

Baker and Peter Twomey started the company about three and a half years ago and launched its product about two years ago. When we last profiled the San Francisco–based company in 2021, it had raised $3 million in seed funding and was working with 500 customers.

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In Interview, CRM & Customer Experience

A new marketing metric: ELTV (Extended Lifetime Value) Webcast with Mention Me

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.

Watch Here…