Announcing the Cardlink Business Factory

Following a series of initiatives taken by Cardlink, in collaboration with Found.ation, as part of the open innovation program Retail Innovation Hub, we are thrilled to announce the launch of Business Factory. It is a structured and flexible program, which aims to highlight new business ideas, innovative products and services, so that they can be developed and integrated in a real environment. 

The Business Factory invites experts, startups and technology solution providers to submit their idea and cooperate with key stakeholders from Cardlink, so that new innovative technology products and services will be developed, accelerating the conversion of needs to solutions, and available products to successful business partnerships. Thus, the customer experience of Cardlink will be improved, connecting the retail industry in a meaningful way, with the ecosystem of innovation, technology, and startups and thereby evolving the industry as a whole.  

The Business Factory is a new, open innovation model for entrepreneurship combining internal company building with innovative solutions and startups. By design, it will play the role of a matchmaker, linking business ideas to talented company stakeholders to execute those ideas or new internal ventures that will come up.  

By streamlining the new services and products building process, the Business Factory is providing founders with a wide-range of networking and business opportunities, and the respective organization with innovative solutions and startup talent ready to co-create.  

Innovative startups and solution providers will be allocated to the respective business units and key stakeholders of Cardlink, so they can examine potential co-operation opportunities and start developing partnerships. The joint meetings will be curated and Found.ation will provide scope and collaboration support to both ends. 

Key Areas 

The Retail Innovation’s Hub Business Factory goes beyond the retail sector and addresses various verticals, looking for technology-enabled teams, products, and services that can change and digitally transform the retail industry. The specific areas of focus for the Business Factory, are: 

• Unattended Machines / EV Chargers 
• Next era of Payments 
• Customer Experience (CX) 
• Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) 
• In-store Digitization / Retail Modernization 
• Virtual Commerce 
• Omnichannel Experience 
• Digital Commerce 
• Q-Commerce 
• Last Mile 

The Business Factory framework kicked off with an extended open call phase, giving the right amount of time for the teams to prepare. As soon as a high-quality entrant is identified and evaluated, they will enter the Business Factory and be matched with the respective key stakeholders of Cardlink. Through the facilitation of the Cardlink Business Factory, the teams will receive coaching and mentoring, in order to enhance the prospects of participating teams developing valuable solutions that solve real challenges. 

We can’t wait to see the fruits of this collaboration! 

Submit your application to the Business Factory here!