ARÇELİK RAISES THE BAR WITH ITS GARAGE INNOVATION HUB, TARGETS LEADERSHIP IN THE GLOBAL INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM

ISTANBUL, April 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Arçelik aims for global leadership by expanding its R&D and innovation collaborations on a global scale with the Garage Innovation Hub. Arçelik Garage Innovation Hub, a growing global open innovation platform, has interacted with more than 2,000 partners, scouted more than 1800 start-ups, and developed cooperation with more than 80 startups.

Garage Innovation Hub organized an Open Innovation Day with the participation of a large number of start-ups, business leaders and investors from around the world in order to contribute to the dissemination of the open innovation culture.

Arçelik's Chief Strategy & Digital Officer Utku Barış Pazar stated that:

"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. On the path to becoming one of the leading open innovation platforms on a global scale, we have set important goals such as supporting the incorporation of new ideas in many fields such as sustainability, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, marketing and production technologies, healthcare, in each of the 146 countries where we operate in the next 5 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."

As one of the spearheads across the world to spread 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 8 million TL 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 among ecosystem players such as startups, mentors, investors and relevant non-governmental organizations, 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. Garage Innovation Hub brought together innovative thinkers, companies, start-ups and investors from all over the world at the Open Innovation Day, which is 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 Chief Strategy & Digital Officer Utku Barış Pazar said "In a short period of 5 years, we 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."

Garage Innovation Hub Partners with Venture Capital Funds

Talking about Arçelik's open innovation approach, Utku Barış Pazar said: "We started to develop Startup Friendly Applications to improve our start-up collaborations. We say "Dare, Connect, Venture, Value". Our goal is to support start-ups 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. Garage Innovation Hub also took another step to provide capital support to entrepreneurs and became a partner to venture capital funds. We took our first step in this direction and became a limited partner in 500 Startups, a globally acclaimed venture capital fund, and joined the latest fund managed by Hoxton Ventures, one of the top venture capital funds in Europe."

As part of the United Nations Generation Equality Forum commitments, Arçelik plans to reach 7000 entrepreneurs, 5000 of whom are women, by 2026, and support them in reaching financial support of approximately 5 million dollars, with the Garage Innovation Hub.

Click to learn more about Arçelik Garage Innovation Hub and to develop collaboration.

https://www.garageinnovationhub.com/ 

About Arçelik

With over 40,000 employees throughout the world, Arçelik's global operations including sales and marketing offices in 49 countries, and 28 production facilities in 9 countries with 12 brands (Arçelik, Beko, Grundig, Blomberg, ElektraBregenz, Arctic, Leisure, Flavel, Defy, Altus, Dawlance, Voltas Beko). As Europe's second-largest white goods company by market share (based on volumes), Arçelik reached a consolidated turnover of 6.5 billion Euros in 2021. Arçelik's 29 R&D and Design Centers & Offices across the globe, are home to over 2,000 researchers and hold more than 3,000 international patent applications to date. In 2021, Arçelik achieved the highest score in the DHP Household Durables category for the 3rd year in a row in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index of the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment. In accordance with PAS 2060 Carbon Neutrality Standard, Arçelik became carbon-neutral in Scope 1 and 2 in global manufacturing in 2019 and 2020 with its own carbon credits. Through its leadership position in sustainability and credible decarbonization roadmap for achieving net zero, Arçelik became the first and only company from its industry to receive the Terra Carta Seal by HRH Prince of Wales. Arçelik's mission is 'Respecting the World, Respected Worldwide.'

www.arcelikglobal.com/en

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SOURCE Arçelik