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In Blog, Munich, Portfolio News

Forging the Future of Customer Experience: Introducing the first SAP.iO Foundry Munich Cohort

At SAP, collaboration is not only an invaluable tool for progress, but a key advantage that continuously benefits our customers, employees, partners, and communities at large. The latest example of our commitment to co-innovation is the SAP.iO Foundry Munich, which has just launched its first accelerator program. As the second SAP.iO Foundry to open in Germany, it seeks to leverage a rich ecosystem devoted to inclusive entrepreneurship, technological expertise, and enablement.

Out of over 150 applicants, seven impressive startups were chosen to take part in our Fall 2019 Commerce and Marketing program. We are excited to introduce the SAP.iO Foundry Munich’s first cohort:

8select
E-Commerce has to be a human experience

8select is a plug-and-play software solution offering a curated shopping engine (CSE) to online retailers enabling them to personalize product recommendations for end consumers. It allows retailers to cross-sell by publishing automatically curated product sets (such as outfits) along the customer journey.

Dotaki
Boosting conversion with AI-enhanced user experience

Dotaki takes conversion rates to the next level for online merchants by using artificial intelligence to personalize digital content and experience according to each individual visitor’s method of making purchasing decisions.

presize.ai
Mobile Body Scanning Software for Fashion E-Commerce

presize.ai provides mobile body scanning software for fashion e-commerce, creating a more enjoyable experience by matching the best-fitting clothes with shoppers’ unique body reality apps for web.

parcelLab
Make customers happy again.

parcellab is a cloud-based service that helps brands provide a personalized and branded customer experience during checkout, shipping and return processes.

rapitag
IoT solutions for unique customer experiences

rapitag is a leading provider of secure mobile checkout and unique customer experiences in retail. rapitag offers the world’s first patented antitheft IoT security tags for one-click buying, helping retailers to connect and digitalize their physical stores.

Expivi
Configure your products in 3D and AR

Expivi is an interactive and visual e-commerce platform that generates an immersive shopping experience with instant 3D configurations and artificial reality. Businesses are able to upgrade their online stores by using Expivi on their own existing marketplace.

ViewAR
One system — unlimited possibilities

ViewAR offers a platform-independent system for easy and robust creation of augmented reality apps for web and mobile use.

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In Press, Article

SAP.iO provides SAP an opportunity to partner instead of acquire

Rather than acquire every company it believes could benefit its customers, SAP is doing something else — partnering with them.

About 18 months ago, SAP contacted Caitlin MacGregor about her startup, Plum.io. It wanted to invest in her psychometric assessment firm. This outreach is part of SAP’s strategy to partner with companies and avoid acquisitions.

McGregor said the effort by SAP “has made us more credible.” Plum gained business from enterprises. Systems integrators, including Deloitte Consulting, are also expanding the company’s reach. “We’ve definitely been able to increase our growth,” she said.

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In Article, Inclusiveness

Mehr Startups von Frauen!

SAP.iO ist SAP‘s strategische Geschäftseinheit, die mit dem SAP.iO Fund und den SAP.iO Foundries innovative Start-ups im B2B Techsektor durch Investitionen und Accelerationsprogramme unterstützt. Mit SAP.iO No Boundaries haben wir uns entschieden, bis zu 40 Prozent des investierbaren Kapitals aus dem SAP.iO Fund für die Förderung von inklusivem Unternehmertum einzusetzen. Durch den Ausbau und verstärkte Aktivitäten bei unserem Programm SAP.iO Foundries wollen wir in den nächsten fünf Jahren mindestens 200 Start-ups weltweit unterstützen. Der SAP. iO Fund und die SAP.iO Foundry Programme zur Förderung von inklusivem Unternehmertum spiegeln die Vision der SAP wieder, die Abläufe der weltweiten Wirtschaft und das Leben von Menschen zu verbessern.

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In Inclusiveness, No Boundaries Event

Women in Tech Summit at Austin Startup Week

Vanessa Liu, SAP.iO Foundries North America, gave the keynote address to kick off the Women in Tech Summit at Capital Factory for Austin Startup Week, one of the largest technology, innovation, and business events in Austin where SAP served as the title sponsor. The Women in Tech summit was a day full of programming to help inspire, engage and elevate female entrepreneurs and tech professionals.

Livestream coverage: https://youtu.be/kI5BH4WqYEo?t=1277 (starting at 21:17 for Vanessa)

Link to official Austin Startup Week 2019 schedule for SAP’s Sessions

In Foundries, Article, Berlin

SAP Politikbrief Startups Journel

The SAP Government Relations team publishes a quarterly info-journal (SAP Politikbrief) for German political and public administration representatives incl. important decision makers from German executive and legislative bodies, such as the Chancellery, Federal and Regional Ministries and Parliaments, municipalities as well as scientists and academics. The Q3 Politikbrief is dedicated to startups. The journal is published in German and English, online and in print.

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In Video

Sustainable Communities Fireside Chat

Ram Jambunathan, SVP and Managing Director of SAP.iO and Head of Corporate Strategy at SAP, participated in a fireside chat with Natasha Franck (Founder and CEO, EON) and Capital Factory Founder Joshua Baer, to discuss the value strategic partners like SAP can have for startups.

Watch now…

In Portfolio News

HR Startup RallyBright Delivers Team-Building Playbook for the Modern Workforce

John Estafanous always wanted to be a lawyer, until he realized his overwhelming passions were for team building and technology. So he ended up back in the startup world, launching RallyBright.

As CEO of this cloud-based performance management startup, Estafanous believes that RallyBright could not come at a more opportune time.

“With far more diverse and often distributed workforces, companies need new tools to understand the collective work experience and its impact on team performance,” said Estafanous. “We are democratizing management consulting and coaching, giving managers transparency in how they manage and lead.”

Offering team building for workplaces roiled by change, the name of the platform is appropriately named: Resilient Teams.

”We measure resiliency by how well a team engages with diversity, sustains performance, rebounds from setbacks quickly, and learns and grows from the experience,” said Estafanous. “That’s how the highest-level teams perform. You see a problem, engage with it, and persist together through thick and thin.”

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In Foundries, Blog, Tel Aviv, Portfolio News

Expanding our commitment to startups: Launching our First SAP.iO Foundry Program in Tel Aviv

Blog Written by Inbar Yacoby

With the immense potential in the entrepreneurial spirit of Europe and as part of SAP’s strategy, I’m very excited to share the news that SAP.iO recently announced the launch of its first accelerator program in Tel Aviv. SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv further expands SAP’s operations in Israel and reflects SAP’s commitment to the dynamic Israeli high-tech ecosystem where we have been active for more than two decades, currently employing approximately 800 developers in our R&D centers in Ra’anana and Tel Aviv.

We are excited to collaborate with amazing entrepreneurs and welcome the following startups to our SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv Fall program:

ARpalus

Predictive Analytics using Augmented Reality

ARpalus helps CPG and retailers understand and predict their shoppers’ preferences using an AR-simulation platform, measuring real behavioral patterns and delivering AI-optimized in-store execution.

EasySend

A no-code smart form builder that empowers enterprises to quickly convert paper forms and clunky PDFs into compliant eForms with deep-analytics in less than two weeks.

EasySend serves over forty enterprise customers, including leading financial institutions and insurance companies in the US, Germany, Japan and Israel. EasySend’s has been adopted by over 90% of the Israeli financial and insurance market and tier-1 US and German financial

GrowthSpace

Online coaching platform for enterprise employees.

GrowthSpace replaces traditional employee training, like workshops or seminars, with personalized 1X1 training. Using technology, GrowthSpace offers personalized training at the cost of traditional training. Users hold one-on-one video coaching sessions targeted at a specific professional challenge.

Outgage

A direct mail platform that bridges the gap between offline and online campaigns.

Outgage is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketing direct-mail platform that makes a connection between offline and online campaigns to create personalized brand experiences, for effective conversations between enterprises and their customers.

Silverback

Sales decisions hub for online retailers

Silverback is an AI-driven sales decision hub for online retailers, empowering them to offer the top-performing products at the most competitive price and optimize promotions to massively boost sales.

Supersmart

Building the world’s leading fast and easy self-checkout system using AI loss prevention technology.

Supersmart provides the world’s first scan-and-go solution with advanced loss prevention capabilities, enabling consumers to instantly check out their fully-loaded cart or basket and have a positive customer experience.

YOUTILIGENT

We Change the Way Vendors and Consumers Connect.

YOUTILIGENT uses machine learning and the Internet of Things to enable vendors and service providers to change the way they communicate with their appliances, through a new connected consumer solution.

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In Portfolio News

Plum raises $4.2 million USD, shifts focus beyond recruitment

Plum, the Waterloo-based startup that uses AI to help organizations hire and retain talent, has raised a $4.2 million ($5.57 million CAD) seed round.
This raise comes as Plum has shifted focus within the last year from talent acquisition to now offering tools to help companies understand and make predictions about their entire workforce. Plum is also focused on offering those services exclusively for large enterprise customers, rather small-and-medium-businesses (SMBs).

The round was led by Real Ventures with participation from BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Fund, and SAP’s venture fund SAP.iO. The seed funding brings Plum’s total funding to date to $6.1 million USD ($8 million CAD), with the previous financing coming from Plum’s angel investor round.

Plum works closely with SAP and integrates with SAP SuccessFactors, the company’s cloud-based human resource management system. MacGregor explained that the shift in focus was directly related to that partnership, and becoming a SAP.io portfolio company. She noted that SAP encouraged Plum to use its predictive AI to help address the needs of current, as well as incoming, employees.

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