TREND 5 — MICRO MIGHTINESS
Big companies from Adidas to BMW to General Mills are investing in startups from smartphone navigational apps to emerging food brands. Citigroup: Citi Ventures invests in location-based mobile technology, data analytics tools and alternative lenders. Citi has joined forces with mobile app developer shopkick to help them launch a walk-in rewards program. A small “signal box” was installed in 1,000 local stores. The signal box emits inaudible soundwaves from a patent-pending device located in each participating retailer. Shoppers who have downloaded the shopkick app can then verify their visit in-store and begin earning shopkick's rewards currency, called “kicks.” With shopkick, stores also have the potential to increase basket size and margins, improve shopper engagement, and build customer frequency.6 BMW IVentures is investing in technologies that can be used for navigating in cities. Its first investment, the MyCityWay smartphone app, provides updates on traffic, public transport, and entertainment in New York and other major cities through a mobile application and the internet. BMW’S aim for this investment for BMW is access to new and younger customers. The goal is to create new cell phone and information services that will not only help consumers “get from A to B,” but “motivate them to get into their products”.7
CASE STUDIES
INSIGHTS
Multinationals venture into Start-Up Investing
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1 Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance, Frost & Sullivan, 2009? 2 Leadbeater, Charles, Miller, Paul, The Pro-Am Revolution: How Enthusiasts Are Changing Our Economy and Society, 2004 3 Jackson, Andrew, Extra/ordinary: Craft and Contemporary Art, 2011
4 http://p2pfoundation.net/Why_ is_Open_Hardware_Inherently_ Sustainable 5 www.creativecommons.org 6 ventures.citi.com 7 www.bmw-i-usa.com
Bitcoin is one of the first implementations of a concept called crypto-currency, which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list. The experimental new digital currency enables instant payment to anyone, anywhere in the world. It uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority. The estimate as of Sept. 2011 was about 60,000 users.
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