MasterCard launches 2016 start-up accelerator
While many new entrants invest for strategic reasons, other tech players like Sapphire are motivated by the promise of strong returns. from other active corporate investors in technology.
SAP rival Salesforce.com’s venture group, which invests solely for strategic reasons, has participated in 134 deals totalling $8.4 billion from January 2011 through August 2016, compared with Sapphire’s 85 deals totalling $3.4 billion, according to GCVA data.
Hits and misses
And Sapphire, like all venture firms, has passed on opportunities to invest in early companies that ultimately became huge.
Marakovic said he passed on Twitter Inc because he wasn’t confident it could turn usage into revenue and passed on Twilio Inc because he felt the valuation at the time was too high.
In part to avoid missing such future deals, SAP made investments in VC firms August Capital, Data Collective, Point Nine Capital and nine others in the US, Europe and Israel. “We have an arguably unfair first peek with a set of companies,” Marakovic said. “I think we will take advantage of this more over the next 12 to 18 months.”
MasterCard has launched a quarterly recruitment campaign for its start-up accelerator programme, Start Path Global. The firm is offering between five and seven innovative start-ups a shot at a six-month virtual programme aimed at helping them tackle business problems and introducing them to new opportunities around the globe.
The scheme is open to any start-up outside the US. Over the last two years, Start Path has worked with more than 90 companies across 24 countries, and MasterCard is running pilots with or has invested in 20 per cent of them.
Start Path was established in early 2014 as a way for MasterCard to work directly with global start-ups building innovative solutions, covering everything from blockchain to artificial intelligence and chatbots.
“In 2014, we wanted to look beyond MasterCard and support innovation that was being developed by new and upcoming, early-stage companies,” said Stephane Wyper, Global Lead, MasterCard Start Path. “We believe every start-up is unique and that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to working together. We have put in place different mechanisms including pilots with MasterCard business lines, access to our APIs [application programming interfaces] and connectivity to our customer base and partner networks.” The deadline for applications is October 11. For more details, visit startpath.com.