MediaMarkt Startup Challenge Changing Retail World

September 16, 2020

It’s been the last 2 years that Hackquarters and MediaMarkt are implementing Retail Startup Challenge for startups. Despite Covid19 MediaMarkt decided to strengthen their support to the startup ecosystem and this year, different from the previous offline programs, Startup Challenge 2020 will be delivered online on September 20th. We intend to turn the current situation into an opportunity since it’s a great chance to reach out to more entrepreneurs and countries this year.

About MediaMarkt Startup Challenge

MediaMarkt Startup Challenge brings a wide range of opportunities to startups in retail tech and retail-related verticals. Similar to the last two years, MediaMarkt and partners are looking for retail tech startups specializing in 3 categories: Retail Sales Technologies, Post-Sales Technologies, and Digital Transformation Processes.MediaMarkt and RetailTech Hub powered by Plug and Play this year will be accepting the winners and integrating the new technologies into their current business model. The best startups selected out of all applications will be shortlisted to pitching front of this year’s jury. We are extremely excited and looking forward to startups to piloting-fast-track with corporate partners, the opportunity to be included in the entrepreneur network of Plug and Play, one of Silicon Valley’s most active investors, chance to pilot in MediaMarkt stores in Turkey and Europe, chance to pilot in Tekzen stores in Turkey and chance to pitch for Chain Stores Association Members.In 2018 and 2019, a total of 22 startups from Turkey and Greece were selected for the MediaMarkt Startup Challenge to pitch their solutions in front of MediaMarkt executives, retail sector professionals, Hackquarters team, and investors. Thus, an interesting track record for this program has started to be formed.For example, BuyBuddy 1st startup in 2018 selected for RetailTech Hub Munich. They made PoCs with global firms and even developed a new product which is one of their main products now. Udentify (2nd in 2018) started PoC with Tekzen and MediaMarkt in Turkey. They are also selected for the next batch of RetailTech Hub Munich and gained a wide variety of clients from Europe.