WALLDORF, Germany, Dec. 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — The SAP® Startup Focus program won first place in the Startup Europe Partnership (SEP) “Europe’s Corporate Startup Stars,” an initiative promoted by the European Commission to recognize Europe’s top startup-friendly companies, SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced today. The awards were presented during a ceremony yesterday in Brussels.

Established by the Commission’s Startup Europe Partnership initiative, the SEP awards recognized 36 companies for their efforts collaborating with startups and encouraging open innovation. Twelve companies were named “Corporate Startup Stars.” Another 24 were recognized as “Open Innovation Challengers.” The competition is organized by open innovation advisory firm Mind the Bridge with the support of the UK-based innovation foundation Nesta.

“The Judging Committee called out SAP’s holistic approach and global presence, along with the company’s strong commitment to procurement and its active role as a M&A player, as influencing its first-place position,” said Alberto Onetti, Mind the Bridge chairman and Startup Europe Partnership coordinator.

“Now in its sixth year, SAP Startup Focus was founded to enable emerging companies to join our innovation ecosystem and bring new technologies to market,” said Manju Bansal, SAP vice president and global head of SAP Startup Focus. “Winning the SEP Europe’s Corporate Startup Star award is a testament that our global startup initiative, with members from more than 60 countries, continues to inspire startups to use the power of SAP platform technologies to develop the solutions of tomorrow.”

SAP Startup Focus supports startups in developing new applications on SAP technology, including SAP Cloud Platform and the SAP HANA® platform, among others. The program is an accelerator for enterprise-centric startups focusing on the Big Data, predictive and real-time analytics space. So far, more than 6,100 startups have engaged with the program, which began in mid-2012. Since then its members have delivered more than 288 validated solutions that address discrete customer needs across multiple industries. Startups remain focused on using SAP technology platforms to deliver next-generation solutions in a wide range of areas including real-time simulations and pattern recognition, blockchain, personalized analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

SAP Startup Focus is an essential part of the company’s startup initiatives, which also comprise programs such as SAP.iO Foundries and SAP IoT Startup Accelerator.

For more information, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

About Startup Europe Partnership (SEP)
Established by the European Commission in January 2014 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, SEP is the first pan-European open innovation platform dedicated to transforming European startups into scaleups by linking them with global corporations and stock exchanges. SEP is led by Mind the Bridge, a global organization based in Europe and Silicon Valley, in partnership with innovation foundation Nesta, the European Investment Fund/European Investment Bank Group, London Stock Exchange Group, EBAN, the European Startup Network and The ScaleUp Institute. By participating in the SEP program, global companies have access to the best technologies and companies with the goal of initiating business partnerships and venture corporate investments. Scaleups are exposed to qualified sales/strategic opportunities as well as funding options either via venture capital, private placements or IPOs. For more info: http://startupeuropepartnership.eu | @sep_eu

About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 365,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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For more information, press only:
Dana Dye, SAP, +1 415-928-1310, dana.dye@sap.com, PT
SAP News Center press room; press@sap.com
Serena Orizi, Mind the Bridge, +39 3204205558, sorizi@mindthebridge.com

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SOURCE SAP SE