OTP Startup Booster Program pilot period has started

OTP Startup Booster Program pilot period has started

The pilot phase of OTP Bank’s fifth Startup Booster Program has been launched, enabling 12 more mature innovative technology businesses in their growth phase to test their products and services. During the three-month cooperation, the selected teams will receive support from OTP Group’s Hungarian and international members, OTP LAB employees and recognized professional mentors. The Program is aimed at finding innovative solutions to actual business needs as a result of a targeted, business-focused, long-term partnership between the Group and the businesses. This year, the call was open to applications covering beyond banking and sustainability solutions as well. The 12 businesses were selected from 265 applicants as a result of a multi-stage selection process to be invited to the pilot phase.

OTP Startup Booster Program, announced for the fifth time, reached another milestone: the pilot phase was launched on 5 September 2022 and will run until 25 November 2022, with OTP Group starting cooperation with 12 startups.

As a committed supporter of innovation, the credit institution involved the entire Group once again this year in seeking out startup partners in order to find innovative solutions to nearly 70 business needs. In the application period of the multi-stage selection process, from 7 March to 18 April 2022, 265 applications from 55 countries were received in total. During the Selection Days event held in May, around 150 participants, banking professionals and representatives of startups from 17 countries worked together on concepts for pilot projects proposed for implementation. The event led to 12 businesses being invited to the pilot phase, enabling them to start testing their products and services with the involvement of the Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Slovenian and Romanian subsidiary banks in addition to the parent bank.

This year, a new topic was added to the Program as the call was also open to applications covering beyond-banking and sustainability solutions. Moreover, interested businesses could also submit applications on well-known topics including customer experience and service, internal efficiency, product-specific innovations in retail and corporate banking and completely novel and disruptive solutions related to the banking sector, other than the above categories.

Each activity of the selected startups fits well in one of the above categories:

• As part of the beyond-banking and sustainability topics, many business needs arose, including with regard to ESG, agriculture and housing ecosystems. Solutions by Agremo and yieldsApp support the collection and analysis of agricultural data, while Cogo measures the carbon emissions and environmental impact of finances and transactions. Mclimate offers an IoT solution that helps make old buildings smart, thereby reducing energy consumption, carbon emissions and maintenance costs.
• Based on transaction data analysis, the solution by Ebitly uses data analytics technology to support financial processes. Modus3 applies sophisticated analytical methods to streamline legal compliance, reporting and other business processes.
• Zuko Analytics provides online multi-platform behavioral analytics to increase conversion rates. Soleadify supports the analysis of businesses and online markets, classifying them based on their online presence.
• Both White Label Loyalty and GetMonety contribute to improving customer experience, the former through the gamification of different transactions and activities, while the latter by offering an education platform for teenagers and young adults on the purpose and use of financial products.
• Ender Turing seeks to enhance internal efficiency by analysing calls made by sales and customer service teams, while the deskbird team offers a turnkey office management platform that helps measure, manage and optimize office utilization.

“We are proud to be able to collaborate with our startup partners on developing and implementing meaningful, innovative solutions at an international level for the fifth year under this Program. In line with our strategy, this year, we gave a priority to expanding the range of applications under the Program with beyond-banking and sustainability-focused products and services. High participation from both various areas of expertise and businesses every year shows that we are on the right track and respond to actual business needs with a high level of professionalism”, András Fischer, Director of Innovation at OTP Bank, explained.

The 12 startups joined the Program from nine countries (Serbia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Romania, the United Kingdom and Israel). Over the three-month period, there will be three special weeks when representatives of the businesses get a dedicated opportunity to attend comprehensive online workshops with our mentors for each field of expertise. In addition, training sessions tailored to the level of maturity of the startups as well as individual mentoring sessions will help the teams with business development. The acceleration period will culminate in the Demo Day event on 30 November where startups will present the lessons learned and the progress achieved during the pilot phase to the management of the Group and Program partners. Teams successfully concluding the pilot phase will move on to the six-month rollout phase of the Program where the OTP Group will provide help with the live implementation of their tested innovative solutions.

For more information on the Program, visit www.otpstartup.com.