Fast Pilot Global Startup Matching

Leveraging emerging technologies from the world’s best startup ventures to solve your organization’s specific challenges

About our Programs

Fast pilot programs are tactical programs meant to bring top global startups to solve the specific local needs an organization faces, with the ultimate objective of accelerating its innovation and digital transformation journey.

We work collaboratively with our clients to define the program challenges, and then we frame them for startup consumption, sourcing the world’s best solutions. The selected companies fly in and get immersed locally with the client team to help facilitate pilots and eventually commercial deals.

We are experts in sourcing the right kinds of companies, leveraging our global networks, such as Google for Startups, and supplementing this reach with 1:1 scouting of the best-fit startups. We identify companies with ready-to-deploy solutions to our clients’ challenges – demonstrating real enterprise traction but with the flexibility to customize their solutions based on need.

FAST PILOT PROGRAMS

Our Methodology

Management Workshop & Program Design

AstroLabs facilitates management and stakeholders workshops to co-design the program with our partners based on their goals. These workshops surface the concrete challenges that tech startups can help the organization solve. The output of this phase is a customized program design based on the unique objectives, assets and requirements of our partner.

Global Outreach & Selection

We launch an intensive campaign to identify and attract the best startups working on tech-based solutions for the challenges identified in the Program Design phase. AstroLabs leverages its unique partnerships such as the Google for Startups network encompassing 45,000+ startups across 50+ partner organizations around the world. Our team also scouts relevant startups through a comprehensive global search and reaches out to them individually. We interview top candidates and invite the best startups to join the Immersion Program.

Immersion Program

A custom-designed program intended to bring the selected startups to work alongside the key stakeholders at our partner organization, exploring the potential to launch a pilot together. AstroLabs also runs tactical training sessions for the participating startups on doing business locally, best practices of working with corporates, intensive pitch preparation, and other topics that will be identified based on the program’s desired outcomes and the profiles of participating startups.

Pitching

Startups will reflect on the feedback from the Immersion Program, and pitch their solutions to a panel of experts and decision makers selected by the partner to aid in making the final decisions on the best fit startups. The key outcome of this phase is selecting which startups have a solution that makes sense to pilot.

Ongoing Support

In this final phase, AstroLabs liaises between the client and the top startups chosen to pilot their solutions to ensure a successful result. We provide ongoing support to the client with managing the integration of the startup’s services and prepare learnings to launch another cohort of the fast pilot program addressing different challenges.

Our Clients

The UPS Smart Logistics Challenge

UPS partnered with AstroLabs in advance of Expo 2020 Dubai to bring the world’s best logistics technology startups to Dubai for the unique opportunity to pilot their solutions with UPS in an emerging markets context.

We worked closely with UPS to identify the specific challenges that tech startups can help them solve and then activated our global network to source the best startups. About 100 companies applied from 29 countries, and we selected the top 6 to pitch in front of UPS senior management in Dubai.

Chalhoub Group – Greenhouse Retail Tech

Chalhoub Group is one of the largest retail operators in the Middle East with over 12,000 employees across 14 countries. AstroLabs partnered with Chalhoub to run three cohorts of a customized retail tech fast-pilot program, sourcing top startups from around the world to solve specific business needs.

AstroLabs started by working with the Chalhoub leadership team to facilitate sessions designed to define the specific business challenges tech companies could help solve. These were used to guide the startup sourcing, which resulted in strong applications from all over the world.

AstroLabs helped design and run this unique implementation acceleration program. As a result, more than 16 Proof of Concepts were implemented across nine brands, and ten commercial agreements have been signed! We are now in the third cohort of the program.

CHALHOUB GREENHOUSE HIGHLIGHTS

Highlights from our first three cohorts

16! POCs

Tested in 7 months

10 Commercial Agreements

9 Brands

Using startup solutions

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