Six international scaleups entered Alestra’s Open Innovation and Soft Landing Program. They are linked to AI, IoT Cybersecurity and Blockchain.

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January 28, 2021 4 min read

This article was translated from our Spanish edition using AI technologies. Errors may exist due to this process.

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Regardless of the size of an organization, to ensure its permanence over time and sustained growth, it requires a process of continuous innovation. There are several ways to achieve this, but several medium or large organizations have opted for open innovation processes to achieve it.

Such is the case of the Monterrey technology provider, Alestra, which this year celebrates 25 years of existence and which has found in the support of startups and corporate acceleration, a way to help organizations to be more productive through digitization.

Since 2016 Alestra has carried out open innovation processes through its NAVE program. With it, he has achieved a greater culture of innovation within the organization, the development of seven new products, innovation with clients (he has managed to connect more than 100 key clients with startups); and increase by more than 13 million pesos in innovation services sold, in addition, more than 23 million pesos in additional services sold as a result of innovation efforts.

Fifth generation ship

To continue these efforts, Alestra selected the scaleups that will participate in its fifth generation of the NAVE Program.

After a selection process involving more than 1,000 scaleups, Alestra selected 10 scaleps, explained Jenaro Martínez, Director of Innovation and Strategic Alliances at Alestra.

This Wednesday, the 10 finalists met to present their proposal to an evaluation steering committee, from which six were selected to start a commercial acceleration process, through which they could close investments, commercial alliances or new product launches.

These companies will carry out a 16-week acceleration program with a view to becoming commercial allies of the technology company. During their participation in NAVE, these scaleups will have access to Alestra’s IT infrastructure and services with an approximate value of 2 million pesos; a bonus of 100,000 pesos as support to implement a pilot with one of the clients; a tailor-made mentoring program with a value of 230,000 pesos and access to Alestra’s commercial network with more than 18,000 clients.

The selected scaleups are:

Cerebriai (artificial intelligence)

  • Country: Canada
  • Customer Experience platform that uses data to measure individual customers and deliver products more intelligently. Increase sales (up sell and cross cell) and avoid churn.
  • Industries: financial, telco and automotive

Virtuelle (virtual reality)

  • Country: MEXICO
  • Immersion experiences to develop skills of employees in a standard, effective and risk-free way.
    • DriVR driving simulator
    • FactoryVR- simulator for training in industry
    • ExecutionVR-point of sale execution simulator
    • 60% reduction in expenses for incidents
    • Reduction of hiring time from 30 days to 8 hours.
  • Industries: logistics, manufacturing and retail.

1 Kosmos (cybersecurity)

  • Country: United States
  • It allows the authentication of digital identities on Blockchain using biometrics. It covers the entire employee journey from access to the building, to access to their laptop and internal company applications. Productivity increase due to a 40% reduction in the number of helpdesk calls ($ 25- $ 70 dlls per call).
  • Industries: all

Omnix (Artificial Intelligence)

  • Country Chile
  • Software as a Service with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning that automates logistical, operational and process capacities of companies. 20% increase in sales and savings of up to 40% in inventory space.
  • Industries: retail, telco and manufacturing

Praemo (Internet of Things)

  • Country: Canada
  • Look for anomalies and trends that indicate deviations from baseline performance. Alerts the operator to the potential problem and recommends actions to prevent consequences. Increases anomaly prediction time from 5 min to 6 days in advance. They reduce production time by 50%.
  • Industries: manufacturing

Stride (Artificial Intelligence)

  • Country: United States
  • Hyper-automation solution specialized in the financial sector, capable of reading documents, extracting and analyzing information. On average, it has generated savings of 70% in time and 40% in operating costs, with an accuracy rate above 90%.
  • Industries: financial and regulatory.

Since its inception, the goal of the NAVE program has been to drive B2B scaleups to make organizations more productive through digitization. Along these lines, since 2016 Alestra and NAVE have accelerated to more than 26 scaleups who are now business partners of Alestra.

For more information about NAVE and its next call visit: www.aceleradoranave.com.mx