Coca-Cola Amatil launches accelerator called Amatil X

From: Food World News

Coca-Cola Amatil has launched a new business accelerator called Amatil X, which will support the development of start-ups, emerging business and identify innovative product concepts.

The company established the accelerator to drive growth outside of Coca-Cola’s core businesses, as the company is not open to proposals for new beverages.

To achieve this, the company has established AX Ventures, a multimillion-dollar investment corporate venturing programme, which will invest in promising companies once they have been identified.

Investment opportunities will be identified by two programmes: ‘Xcelerate’ and ‘Xponential’, both of which will test the viability of innovative ideas which could “improve the customer experience” or create new revenue streams.

Xcelerate will be operated by both Coca-Cola Amatil and start-up accelerator BlueChilli, and will seek applications from entrepreneurs and emerging businesses from Australia and New Zealand. Applications for the Xcelerate programme opened on 12 April.

Meanwhile, the Xponential programme is an employee venturing programme, which will identify potential investment opportunities from within the company itself, leveraging Coca-Cola Amatil’s existing innovation programmes to find relevant opportunities.

Once the programmes have concluded, AX Ventures will review participants and deem whether further investment is suitable.

Coca-Cola Amatil group managing director, Alison Watkins said: “Customers’ worlds are changing quickly, with increasing expectations driven by technology.

“At the same time, beverage trends and drinking occasions are evolving fast. While remaining focused on our core is critical, we need to find new avenues of growth.

“We want to continue to challenge ourselves to provide our customers with ‘Only at Amatil’ experiences.

“Our team has been examining rapidly evolving companies across various sectors in Australia and overseas for the past six months.

“The result is Amatil X. Our aspiration is for Amatil X to set the benchmark for how to bridge the gap between large established corporations and the agility and innovation of start-up businesses, so that we leverage entrepreneurs to help fuel our growth agenda.

“We are investing today for tomorrow’s growth. We want the start-up community to know we’re open for business and supporting both the start-up community ecosystem, and the Australian and New Zealand economies.”

Claims: 
The copyrights of articles in the website belong to authors. Please inform us if there is any violation of intellectual property and we will delete the articles immediately.