Horeca Challenge zoekt innovatieve oplossingen voor drie Horeca-uitdagingen: het beheren van de toestroom van klanten, de gezondheid en veiligheid van klanten en het verbeteren van de winstgevendheid van de sector. De Mediapro Group, Damm en Familia Torres lanceren het Horeca Challenge-initiatief, een oproep aan start-ups om nieuwe oplossingen te ontdekken en te ontwikkelen die de business van bars en restaurants op middellange termijn een boost geven. De winnende startups kunnen een pilot van hun project ontwikkelen, mede gefinancierd door de initiatiefnemers van het initiatief. Het betreft Horeca in Barcelona, maar wie weet of het zich uitbreidt.
Lees verder in het Engelstalig persbericht:
The drive, presented within the framework of the EIC Innovation Hub Visit to Barcelona, being held in Barcelona these days and organized by the European Innovation Council and ACCIÓ (the Generalitat de Catalunya -Catalan regional government- agency for corporate competitiveness), is looking for startups that project innovative and effective solutions to help bars and restaurants improve their situation. The objective is to provide impetus to a sector suffering the impact of the consequences of Covid-19, but that with the incorporation of innovative solutions can be strengthened and faces a promising future.
In this sense, Mediapro, Damm and Familia Torres are looking for startup projects that respond to three challenges: how to manage the influx of customers, how to guarantee health and safety conditions of patrons and how to optimize the profitability of visits to the premises.
Startups interested in taking part in the Horeca Challenge can submit their project application via the initiative’s website, www.horecachallenge.com. The deadline for receiving applications will end on January 15th, 2021. After analyzing the applications, Grupo Mediapro, Damm and Familia Torres will select a total of six finalist startups for each challenge, with the finalists to be announced at the end of January.
Finalists will have the opportunity to present their projects in a pitch in mid-February and on February 26th, 2021, the winners of each Horeca Challenge will be announced (one per challenge). From then on, each of the selected startups will deliver a pilot of their proposal co-financed by Mediapro, Damm and Familia Torres (€6,000 per project) for three months. On June 15th, the pilots will finish, while Horeca Challenge will end with a “Demo Day” on June 30th, 2021 in which the winners will showcase the results of their pilots to prominent investors and other companies.
The Horeca Challenge is supported by ACCIÓ, F6S and the Barcelona Restaurateurs Association, among other bodies.
María Carmen Fernández, Director of Innovation and New Business for the Mediapro Group: “Here at Mediapro, and more specifically from the Innovation and Business areas of Canal Horeca, we promote and support this initiative in order to rally around the sector and to detect opportunities and new ways of enjoying sports entertainment in bars and restaurants. The growth in the consumption of digital content, together with a multitude of new services being developed will strengthen the relationship between sports fans and the venue where content is consumed, while improving the experience of the client in the premises before, during and after the matches. Futbar, the app to experience football in bars, is an example of our commitment to the sector, and Horeca Challenge represents a new opportunity for growth and development for all the stakeholders”.
Laura Gil, Director of Digital Transformation at Damm: “Open innovation is, without a doubt, an innovative technique to identify ways of collaboration between different sectors with a common objective. The hospitality industry is Damm’s main client, therefore, one of our current priorities is to promote innovative initiatives to favor the acceleration of the recovery of this fundamental sector for the economy of our country; The Horeca Challenge is one such example.
Mireia Torres, Director of Innovation and Knowledge at Familia Torres: “At Familia Torres, we have been promoting open innovation for years, through collaboration with start-ups and research organizations, to respond to the challenges we face in areas such as sustainability and digitization. At present, our priority is to help the hospitality industry, so we are proud to be involved in this project that will provide bars, restaurants and companies in the Horeca sector with tools and solutions to assist them in their recovery.”.
