The open innovation investments of institutions continue to increase along with their global commitments.
Arçelik, a white goods giant, aims for global leadership by expanding its research and development (R&D) and innovation collaborations on a global scale with the Garage Innovation Hub, its planning and execution department for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Arçelik Garage Innovation Hub, a growing global open innovation platform, has to date interacted with more than 2,000 partners, scouted more than 1,800 startups and developed cooperation with more than 80 startups.
Garage Innovation Hub organized an Open Innovation Day with the participation of a large number of startups, business leaders and investors from around the world in order to contribute to the dissemination of the open innovation culture.
As part of the United Nations Generation Equality Forum commitments, Arçelik plans to reach 7,000 entrepreneurs, 5,000 of whom are women, by 2026, and support them in reaching financial support of approximately $5 million with the Garage Innovation Hub.
“As a growing global innovation platform, together with our nearly 2,000 stakeholders, including mentors, investors, universities, and entrepreneurs from all over the world; we provide business development, access to financial support and mentorship to entrepreneurs, starting from the idea stage,” Arçelik's chief strategy and digital officer Utku Barış Pazar said.
On the path to becoming one of the leading open innovation platforms on a global scale, Pazar said they have set important goals such as supporting the incorporation of new ideas in many fields like sustainability, artificial intelligence, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), marketing and production technologies, and health care, in each of the 146 countries where they operate in the next five years.
“As we continue to provide startups with access to financial support, we will further increase our contribution to the ecosystem by partnering with regional venture capital funds. In February 2022, we took our first step in this direction and became a limited partner in the 500 Startups, a globally acclaimed venture capital fund, and in April, we joined the latest fund managed by Hoxton Ventures, one of the top venture capital funds in Europe,” he noted.
Spearheading the global spread of the open innovation culture, Arçelik aims for global leadership with the Garage Innovation Hub. Arçelik Garage Innovation Hub, which has interacted with more than 2,000 partners since its establishment in 2017, has provided 40 entrepreneurs with access to TL 8 million ($540,000) in grant aid, and training and mentoring support to 274 entrepreneurs to date. With its incubation activities, it has supported more than 80 startups to develop business ideas.
Garage Innovation Hub aims to transform innovative ideas into products and projects by creating a mutual sharing ecosystem through entrepreneurship, innovation programs and events it carries out inside and outside the company.
It plays a facilitating role to enable the ecosystem to benefit from knowledge, experience and connections of players in the ecosystem such as startups, mentors, investors and relevant nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), private and public institution representatives.
Garage Innovation Hub, which designs innovation and entrepreneurship programs, also works to develop new technologies and business models that fall outside of Arçelik’s core competencies.
Garage Innovation Hub, a growing open innovation platform, aims to contribute to the development of the ecosystem in line with its global leadership goal in the field of open innovation. It has brought together innovative thinkers, companies, startups and investors from all over the world at the Open Innovation Day, which was organized for the first time this year.
Stating that the Open Innovation Day is a platform for stimulating discussions with the participation of important players within the ecosystem, Arçelik’s Pazar said in a short period of five years, they have worked together with a large number of universities, NGOs, institutions and organizations from all over the world that support innovation.
“Innovation is not a process that belongs to an institution or a function alone. Open innovation platforms such as the Garage Innovation Hub can enable ideas to come to life, paving the way for innovations that benefit humanity. We aim to bring more and more ideas to life, wherever possible,” he noted.
On Arçelik’s open innovation approach, Pazar said they have started to develop Startup Friendly Applications to improve their startup collaborations.
“We say ‘Dare, Connect, Venture, Value.’ Our goal is to support startups in each of the 146 countries where we operate. On the path to becoming one of the leading open innovation platforms globally, we continue to support entrepreneurs in reaching grants through programs such as BIGG3.”
Arçelik has over 40,000 employees throughout the world and its global operations include sales and marketing offices in 49 countries, and 28 production facilities in nine countries. It has 12 brands, namely Arçelik, Beko, Grundig, Blomberg, ElektraBregenz, Arctic, Leisure, Flavel, Defy, Altus, Dawlance and Voltas Beko.
It is Europe’s second-largest white goods company by market share, based on volumes. Arçelik reached a consolidated turnover of 6.5 billion euros ($6.85 billion) in 2021.
Arçelik’s 29 R&D and design centers and offices across the globe are home to over 2,000 researchers and hold more than 3,000 international patent applications to date.
