avingsNow! and Recycletronics have joined the SAP.iO Venture Studio with goals of scaling and growing business for SAP and its customers. As part of the New Ventures and Technologies organization, the SAP.iO Venture Studio takes an employee-driven approach to innovation by bringing it in-house with an intrapreneurship program.
The two new employee-created ventures have received €1-2 million in funding from SAP through the company’s grassroots Scouting & Acceleration program.
“Entrepreneurs at SAP are in a unique position to shape the future of enterprise software,” said Ram Jambunathan, head of SAP.iO Venture Studio. “SAP’s distinctive understanding of business processes enables ventures like Recycletronics and Savings Now! to leverage data and technology to explore, experiment, and transform how business is done.”
The intrapreneurship program operates as an accelerator that supports entrepreneurial employees by creating an environment that fosters a culture of exploration and innovation. Employees selected for the program can build out and validate their ideas through working with real end users and assigned mentors from across SAP expertise in the challenges faced by SAP and its customers. From these interactions, the teams can then accelerate their idea into a venture with proven market demand.
To better understand today’s business landscape and how their proposed solutions fit within it, teams run through two phases. During the validation phase, teams join an eight-week self-paced program with virtual lectures covering topics from testing assumptions to analyzing markets and building a first version of their product. During the acceleration phase, some get the opportunity to further develop and test their product and to win early-stage customers. They receive feedback from mentors from inside and outside of SAP, including a committee of senior leaders from across SAP, along with founders and investors.
