EIC ePitching to Procurers with BME Solution Days – Across Borders

The German Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics (BME) partnered up with the European Innovation Council for a second time on 8 June 2021. During this event, the EIC-backed innovators had the exclusive chance to introduce their services to a wide jury of buyers like FUNKE Mediengruppe, Jakob Müller Holding AG (CH), NanogateManagement Services GmbH, K+S Group, KFW Bankengruppe and DMG Mori AG, through pitches and prescheduled B2B matchmakings.

The 10 EIC-funded start-ups and scaleups from 8 different countries pitched their innovations in the field of digitalisation and automated processes, such as innovative approaches, source-to-pay, digital value management, solutions in the area of digital supplier management and risk management. After the event, we got together with the BME Chairwoman of the Board and CPO of the FUNKE Mediengruppe, Gundula Ullah and Dessislava Tsvetkova, Head of Product Management and Horizon 2020 Project Coordinator of the Bulgarian EIC beneficiary Transmetrics.

FUNKE Mediengruppe: Passionate about journalism

Funke Mediengruppe, founded in 1948, is one of the biggest media houses of Germany. More than 1,500 journalists and some 4,500 media makers across six states work for FUNKE. Various publishers, sites and products have come together over the decades to form the company. This diversity, combined with the employees' talent and skills, is the media company's greatest strength. Cooperation is embedded in a shared set of values, guided by the three company values: result, quality, respect. These facts combine wonderfully with those of the EIC. “The EIC scouts cross border talent with innovative ideas, which is extremely useful for us at FUNKE. There is the preselection step, where the EIC is filtering the startups and selecting the most relevant ones for our needs.” said Gundula Ullah. Furthermore, she disclosed on which point the team was focusing during the pitches mentioning that “we were looking for 3 things: open-mindedness, entrepreneurial spirit and assertiveness. We are searching for the right person and personality, with whom we can embark on an innovation journey together, like a travel-buddy along the way.” More specifically, she mentioned “FUNKE “sits” on a lot of data and information about suppliers. Leveraging this data using innovative technologies will support us to become more efficient – I have seen many cutting-edge ideas from the EIC startups that are worth exploring further”.

Transmetrics: EIC for stepping up the game

A state-of-the-art AI (Artificial Intelligence) platform developed exclusively for supply chain professionals, Transmetrics optimizes transport planning by leveraging the power of predictive analytics and machine learning. Transmetrics combines the strengths of humans with those of AI, ensuring the highest operational benefits, and reducing the environmental impact of logistics. Dessislava openly shared the benefits of the EIC funding that the company received stating that “the EIC funding helped the company to prepare a full product that is marketable. It also allowed us to think about a long-term strategy, compared to the pilot phases that we were used to.”  Moreover, she mentioned, the difficulties that SMEs can face getting in contact with the right team of procurers and how the EIC helps facilitate the connection: “It is important for us to get the right audience in an efficient way, the Business Acceleration Services (BAS) events give us this opportunity to “shout out” to our sellers and to meet corporates, investors and, in this case, procurers.”

Interested in EIC Procurers Days? 

Are you looking for opportunities to connect with some of the largest public and private procurers of innovation in Europe? The next EIC ePitching with Procurers event is with the No-Fear consortium, and will take place on 22 July 2021, online (applications will open till 18 June). Stay tuned to our events calendar and apply today to grab the opportunity to take your business to the next level.