funding Archives • SAP.iO

Kelli Kohout In Article, Inclusiveness, Interview

SAP Leverages Its Massive Network to Uplift Diverse Startup Founders

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.”

A boost for underrepresented founders…

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.

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Kelli Kohout In Foundries, Article

How Startups Can Maximize Their Partnership With Corporates

The partnership between a startup and a corporation is all about balance. Startups harness their agility to identify new market opportunities but often struggle to scale. On the other hand, corporations have successfully scaled but can miss new market opportunities. This is not to say that either can’t do the other successfully – they can and have – but there’s a benefit to partnering up.

There’s a reason 94 percent of tech executives think innovation partnerships are an essential component of their strategy. Partnerships offer access to new markets and customers. They can lower development costs, provide valuable insights into experimental technologies and the talent required to build them, and, importantly, accelerate innovation. The problem is that these partnerships are anything but a sure thing.

Let’s dive into what corporates look for in a partner and how startups can increase the chances of a successful collaboration.

Corporates offer more than funding

While many corporates ask for equity in startups, entering the partnership with a no-equity stake goes a long way in establishing clear parameters and trust for both parties. Although seemingly counterintuitive, financing is not among the top three reasons startups engage in corporate partnerships.

Startups are primarily interested in access to the corporate’s customers and market. In exchange, startups help solve a broader range of customer problems and expand a corporation’s product offerings. More partners also mean a more extensive ecosystem and the chance to offer customers a curated selection of startup solutions.

Understand what makes you unique

Startups should acknowledge that there is often a chasm in work cultures and styles. Corporates plan, budget, and approach risk differently. They also have different types of customers.

Mark Osborn, GVP Business Development & Strategy, SAP Consumer Industries, advises startups approaching corporate customers should find others with a similar mindset. “It helps when you can identify the innovators in those organizations – people who are willing to take some risk on new products in exchange for innovation,” says Osborn. “Startups need to understand that the value they bring to a corporate customer is the opportunity to innovate and get ahead of the competition, even if it means taking a risk.”

Not all partnerships work out

The stakes will always be higher for startups than for corporations. Most startups don’t succeed, and more than two-thirds of them never deliver a positive return to investors. So having access to a corporate partner’s market and customers while sending a positive signal to investors can help. Despite the benefits, not all partnerships work out. For example, an integration won’t strengthen anyone’s value proposition if the startup’s ideal customer doesn’t use the corporation’s products.

NavVis Adds Fresh Funding To Fulfill Its Mission To Digitize Commercial Buildings And Assets

NavVis is a global leader in end-to-end solutions for reality capture and digital twins. The company is on a mission to bridge the gap between the physical and digital world by enabling immediate access to building information, anytime, anywhere. The NavVis product offering includes the world’s most advanced reality capture solution, which allows for rapid digitization of buildings and assets, and cloud-based digital twin software for the manufacturing and construction sector.

NavVis announced that they have received 25€m of fresh equity funding that complements the recent 20€m debt funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB), raising the total investment to 85€m. The round was led by Cipio Partners, with additional capital from previous investors, BayBG, MIG, Target Partners, Digital+ Partners, and Kozo Keikaku Engineering, making NavVis one of the best-funded deep tech startups in Europe.

AI-Driven Routing Company Wise Systems Raises $50 Million

Wise Systems – a leading AI-driven routing and dispatching platform provider – announced it has raised $50 million in Series C financing led by Tiger Global Management with participation from new and existing investors that include Section 32, Valo Ventures, Gradient Ventures, and Prologis Ventures.

Wise Systems’ real-time, automated system enables delivery and service operations with drivers worldwide across the last-mile industry. And the company will use the financing to further accelerate product development, market expansion across key geographies, and to address the increasing global demand for the company’s dispatching and routing solutions.

Known as a leader in AI technology for last-mile delivery operations, Wise Systems saw significant growth over the two past years, growing 300% year-over-year, experiencing increased demand for the company’s autonomous dispatch and routing technology across a number of markets. And today’s announcement comes on the heels of other significant developments for Wise Systems this year, including the availability of its platform in the SAP App Store and its launch in Japan. In July, Wise Systems announced a partnership with Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation (MFTBC), under the umbrella of Daimler Trucks Asia (DTA), to offer the company’s AI-driven routing and dispatch software to MFTBC customers in Japan. This partnership extends Wise Systems’ reach to the commercial vehicle industry in Japan, one of the busiest last-mile markets in the world.

Employee development platform GrowthSpace raises $15 million Series A led by M12

Israeli startup GrowthSpace, which has developed a platform for employee development programs, announced on Wednesday that it has secured a $15 million Series A investment round. The financing was co-led by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, and Vertex Ventures. This latest round of funding, which also included previous investor M-Fund Club, brings GrowthSpace’s total amount raised to $19 million.

GrowthSpace has developed a technology that provides a personalized development program for employees. The system matches employees and experts after understanding their business goals and professional challenges. The company said it has over 1,000 coaches, mentors, and professionals speaking a variety of languages with expertise in 300 different skills. The company’s business model is based on an annual subscription that includes a certain amount of credits, with each credit being equal to one personalized development program for an employee which includes 5-7 meetings with an expert. The cost per credit drops as the subscription program grows.

Airwallex raises $200M at a $4B valuation to double down on business banking

Business, now more than ever before, is going digital, and today a startup that’s building a vertically integrated solution to meet business banking needs is announcing a big round of funding to tap into the opportunity. Airwallex — which provides business banking services directly to businesses themselves as well as via a set of APIs that power other companies’ fintech products — has raised $200 million, a Series E round of funding that values the Australian startup at $4 billion.

Lone Pine Capital is leading the round, with new backers G Squared and Vetamer Capital Management, and previous backers 1835i Ventures (formerly ANZi), DST Global, Salesforce Ventures and Sequoia Capital China also participating.

The funding brings the total raised by Airwallex — which has head offices in Hong Kong and Melbourne, Australia — to $700 million, including a $100 million injection that closed out its Series D just six months ago.

SoftBank Invests in Adverity in $120M series D round

Vienna-based marketing analytics startup Adverity has raised $120 million in an equity funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2, helping it to tap growing demand for consumer data.

The startup sees an opportunity in allowing sellers to improve their marketing as Apple Inc. and Google make it harder for brands to track consumers, increasing the value of other sources of information on how people behave online.

“It’s a great opportunity for marketing teams to get ahead again because it’s leveling the field for everybody,” Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Alexander Igelsbock said in an interview.

Established in 2015, Adverity says it pulls in data from more than 500 sources to offer analysis and insights on a brand’s marketing efforts across platforms such as Amazon.com Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok.

CENSIA Raises $21m in Series A Funding to Bring Bias-free Intelligence to Human Capital Management

Censia, a leading provider of Talent Intelligence technology, today announced it has raised $21M in Series A funding in a round led by Marbruck Investments. Marbruck joins existing investors Streamlined Ventures, Merus Capital, The CXO Fund, and CerraCap bringing the company’s total funding to over $30 million.

With this funding, Censia will expand go-to-market efforts, scale their API-first offering, and continue product innovations for talent acquisition and workforce planning powering HR technologies of the future with AI.

Censia was built on the belief that unconscious bias in talent decisions is affecting billions of highly capable people around the world from getting opportunities they deserve, contributing to the talent shortage, and impacting organizations’ bottom line.