Axel Springer establishes Silicon Valley hub to partner with startups and identify investment opportunities

Written By Ana Martinez

The Client

Axel Springer is one of the largest digital media publishing companies in Europe.

The Objective

Axel Springer sought to engage with innovative startups, forging strategic partnerships and uncovering investment opportunities, thus ensuring its relevance in today's swiftly changing market.

The Solution

Our team acts as an extension of their team in Silicon Valley to identify and connect Axel Springer with relevant startups and technology companies with the goal to develop partnerships or identify possible investment opportunities.

The Outcome

In one project, Axel Springer was interested in exploring innovations around privacy. Leveraging our startups network and technology expertise, our team mapped out the technology landscape to identify the top directly relevant startups and technology companies. Our team organized in-person strategic meetings with the shortlisted companies and guided the companies through potential partnership discussions.

Axel Springer selected Silent Circle, a cutting-edge encrypted communication platform, and Gliph, a secure and private messaging system and P2P marketplace, to test out their technologies in pilots.

Ana Martinez

Ana has extensive experience in corporate innovation. She has helped over 25 Global 1000 corporations from a wide range of industries develop new business strategies using the latest technologies in the market and has also led 70+ partnerships between corporations and startups. Ana has worked with corporate clients such as Nestle, PepsiCo, Volkswagen, Procter & Gamble, JetBlue, Mizuho, BP, Repsol, Nissan, Avis Budget Group, Magna, Renault, Ferguson, Allstate, GrainCorp, Givaudan, BSM, Griffith Foods, AGC, IAG, among others.

As a member of Rabobank’s first Innovation Team, Ana successfully launched Foodbytes, a pitch competition and networking platform that connects the top food and agriculture startups, corporates and investors. With 15 global pitch competitions, 260+ startup pitches and 4700+ attendees, Foodbytes has become the top startup pitch competitions in the food and agriculture industries. She also launched TERRA, a food and agriculture accelerator that brings together the industry’s most disruptive startups and leading corporations to fuel industry innovation and strategic partnerships.

Ana graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a major in Economics. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and loves to play golf!

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