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AB InBev’s global innovation arm, Beer Garage witnessed an impactful launch of their flagship ‘BudStart Accelerator Programme’ on April 23, 2021, comprising three editions – Global FinTech, APAC and Africa. The launch was attended by 1100+ participants and received a tremendous response with 1500+ applications pouring in from 60+ countries across 26 key business challenges.

The aim of the accelerator programme is to solve business problems of AB InBev through co-innovation/plug-and-play implementation by partnering with some of the best startups across the globe. Over the past two years, Beer Garage has witnessed an exciting journey, having successfully built an ecosystem of 600+ startups, delivered 18+ innovation programmes in the APAC region and partnered with 20+ startup ecosystem enablers and VCs. These innovations have helped AB InBev ramp up their business exponentially, while enabling startups like Discover Dollar and Aerchain to expand to global markets.

This year, at the Global Fintech edition, a high number of applications came in from Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, UK, France, Singapore and China, with most applicants for use cases like Value Added Services (VAS), alternative payment methods, alternative SMB lending and open banking API.

The APAC edition witnessed high submissions from India, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan with most applicants for use cases like consumer data collection and targeted marketing, utility as a service, and brewery operations.

In the Africa Edition, many startups from South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Botswana and Kenya applied for the program. The top applied use cases were last-mile delivery and smart vehicle tracking, reverse logistics (recycle and sustainable solutions) and competitive intelligence (market analytics).

Among all challenges, the best of the startups will be shortlisted for a leadership pitch session during the month of July for the final cohort selection. The pilots are slated to start in the month of August with the demo day taking place in December 2021.

The participating startups will get paid for their proof of concept (POC), support to improve product/solution maturity, explore global expansion opportunities, mentoring (functional, technical, legal), strategic investment opportunities and access to corporate and partnership connections and much more.

With this program, AB InBev is leveraging emerging startup ecosystems across the globe, funneling novel ideas within the organisation to foster innovation and drive higher business impact.