Meet the MediaMarkt Startup Challenge Day 2021 Winners!

October 27, 2021

Last Friday, we held an amazing Challenge Day for the 4th batch of MediaMarkt Startup Challenge, in partnership with MediaMarkt, Lenovo, Plug and Play, and Digital Network Alkas. It is getting more and more exciting each year to organize the MediaMarkt Startup Challenge and every year, we are reaching bigger audiences. We are very excited to see what the future holds for all parties involved regarding the challenge.

MediaMarkt Startup Challenge Infgraphic 2018-2021

The program started off with the welcoming speech of MediaMarkt Turkey CEO and MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group COO Yenal Gökyıldırım. He was excited by the track record of the program so far and mentioned how every year, the interest in the program is increasing. This year’s challenge caught the interest of 208 startups from 46 countries in total (with 16 of them in the pipeline and 11 in the final). 113 of them have already raised their investment rounds (63 seed, 36 pre-seed, 12 Series A, 1 Series C, and 1 Crowdfunding). So far in the 4 batches, the program has recorded 525 applications, 268 of them in Retail Sales Technologies, 145 in Corporate Digitization Processes, 54 in After Sales Technologies, and 59 in others. Yenal Gökyıldırım also emphasized that former winners of the program (such as BuyBuddy and Udentify) have become their key solution partners for significant processes in their operations. This is the explicit value created, all due to this challenge.

The event continued with the speech of Hackquarters Founder and CEO Kaan Akın. He highlighted the significance of corporate-startup partnerships and the value created together. “It makes us feel excited to see the outcomes of these partnerships.” He added that the partnership between MediaMarkt and startups is not limited to 3 winners of the challenge; rather, MediaMarkt will work with most of the startups selected for the final. Also, this year’s partner Lenovo will bring in surprises for the 3 winners of the challenge. The benefits of this challenge for winners continues to help startups expand more: A chance to participate in the Retailtech Hub program in Munich, an innovation platform for startups with a clear focus on a piloting-fast-track with corporate partners, and the opportunity to be included in the entrepreneur network of Plug and Play, one of Silicon Valley’s most active investors.


In the remaining parts of the program, Yenal Gökyıldırım introduced the jury members and startups pitched their solutions. Jury members (other than Kaan Akın and Yenal Gökyıldırım) were Sonja Moosburger, Managing Director at MediaMarktSaturn N3XT, Banu Soyak, Head of Marketing & Communications at Lenovo Turkey, and Hülya Güler, INBUSINESS Founding Editor-in-Chief / Sabah Newspaper Columnist shared their excitements about the program.


Here are the startups who pitched during the challenge:


Clinch

Clinch is an AI-powered Creative Personalization platform that delivers consumer-tailored ad experiences across all channels, to drive online and in-store performance and sales. Clinch provides brands and agencies with an omni-channel creative solution that leverages data to automate, personalize and optimize display and video ad experiences at scale, across programmatic, social media, in-app, native, and OTT / CTV.


Greendeck

Greendeck helps retailers and brands optimize their pricing and monitor their competitors, using artificial intelligence.


Hexa

Hexa uses its proprietary technology platform and 3D database to convert retailers' and brands' existing images and product information into immersive content (3D/AR/VR) at half the cost and twice the speed.


Levitate

Software-enabled hardware system that enables physical animations possible for visual merchandisers without coding. It is an automated puppet master which is controlled over the internet.


MoEngage

MoEngage is an intelligent customer engagement platform for the customer-obsessed marketer. They help you delight your customers and retain them for longer. With MoEngage you can analyze customer behavior and engage them with personalized communication across the web, mobile, and email. MoEngage is a full-stack solution consisting of powerful customer analytics, AI-powered customer journey orchestration, and personalization - in one dashboard.


Optiyol

Optiyol is a B2B Software solution that helps retailers and carriers with end-to-end optimization of logistics; from planning with advanced algorithms to execution with a driver app. Optiyol reduces fuel costs by 15-20%, fleet size by 5-10%, and improves on-time performance by 30%.


Qudini

Qudini is a global B2B SaaS company that offers market-pioneering Retail Choreography solutions. We are the first software suite to enable retailers to triumph by optimizing their experience, operations, and data.

Qumpara

Qumpara is a mobile app that rewards shoppers by snapping a photo of their receipt. That's how we activate promotion and loyalty offers to shoppers, build one on one relationships in a personalized manner, and leverage technology in order to solve the data and communication gap between the consumers' brands and shoppers.

Speedy Market

Speedy Market is an autonomous online grocery concept built specifically for the building you live in and delivered by robots. Speedy Market's advantage starts right after the order is placed. After your order is received, your products are loaded from vending machines to Speedy robots that give their name to Speedy Market without human touch, and Speedy brings the products to your door quickly, safely, and autonomously.


Streams Live

Streams Live is livestream shopping for both online and offline environments, assisted by AI.

VenueX

VenueX offers an omni-channel platform that helps brick-and-mortars attract online shoppers by bringing their local inventory and POI data across multiple online channels in real-time.

Once the Q&A session between the jury members and the startups concluded, the final decision had been made.


Drumroll, please!

The winners of the MediaMarkt Startup Challenge are Optiyol, MoEngage, and QUMPARA. 

Congratulations to our winners and all the startups who participated! We are very excited to witness your success stories with MediaMarkt and all the other partners of the challenge! See you next year!

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