Footprints AI, a Romanian company that operates one of the most advanced Retail Media platforms in the world, was selected in two of the most important business accelerators in the world: Plug and Play, from the USA and Particle X, from Hong Kong.
Plug and Play, based in Silicon Valley, is the world’s largest business accelerator and the main innovation platform connecting, in a dynamic ecosystem, more than 50,000 startups, more than 500 corporations from around the world and hundreds of venture capital firms, universities and government agencies.
Footprints AI was selected from several hundred registered startups and will go through an acceleration program, along with 145 other finalist companies from 16 countries. Last year, Plug and Play invested in 247 companies and contributed to the development of over 2,400 businesses.
Particle X is based in Hong Kong and is one of the leading business accelerators in Asia, focused on the growth of technology startups. By combining network, capital and research resources, Particle X accelerates the pace of technological innovation and assists early-stage startups to take advantage of business opportunities in Asia. Footprints AI was selected among the 4 finalists in the Particle X Urbantech Global Challenge (PUGC) program, out of 180 companies from 33 countries.
“The business development programs in which we are included allow us to more quickly and safely address the markets where we have proposed to expand, in the present case, the USA and Asia, and give us the opportunity to accelerate the development of the company. Participating in two of the largest accelerators simultaneously facilitates our exposure to potential investors and customers, who are already part of the Plug and Play and Particle X ecosystems, and will help us, both from the point of view of business scalability and optimizing the go to market strategy, with better knowledge of the target markets,” said Dan Marc, Footprints AI founder.
Footprints AI joined the two accelerators last October. The pre-qualification interviews followed, after which the qualification stage with evaluation on multiple criteria: technology, team, vision, scalability, profitability, etc. Acceleration programs last 3 months and involve a series of meetings, mostly face-to-face, with investors, potential customers and strategic partners for target markets.
Collaboration with both programs will continue after the 3 months, through the fruition of opportunities, without a deadline, especially in the case of future investment decisions.
Footprints AI has budgeted investment of over €1 million for development in 2023 and is also preparing to open its second funding round in the summer.