Accelerated development
“The Accelerator has helped us to find eleven brilliant concepts, which we now want to intensively support on their way to greater productive capacity and success.”
Software solutions, apps and mobile marketing instruments: in many countries, only a modest range of digital solutions are currently available to hotel, food service and catering businesses. This assessment by METRO led to its decision to advance digitalisation in this sector by launching the Techstars METRO Accelerator in April 2015. Developed in cooperation with the American company Techstars and the digital advertising agency R/GA, the promotional programme aims to find and provide support to the best and most creative technology start-ups that bring added value to the hospitality industry.
Start-ups – a matter for the boss: Olaf Koch, Chairman of the Management Board of METRO AG, welcomes the finalists of the Techstars METRO Accelerator in Berlin.
“METRO is a strong brand in the international retail and whole-sale sector – that attracted the attention of a lot of exciting start-ups to the programme.”
Several hundred teams of business founders submitted their concepts during the three-month application period. Eleven of these made the leap into the concluding round. The finalists now have until the end of January 2016 to further develop their concepts in collaboration with the mentors in the Techstars METRO Accelerator – and convince the jury of their ideas on the so-called Demo Day. Not only the participants themselves are excited about the finals!
In the former East German state council building, the start-ups work on new ideas for the food service, hotel and catering industries.
