Vending

Sodexo Live! announces inaugural accelerator partners

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January 10, 2023

Sodexo Live!, the hospitality arm of Paris-based Sodexo, has selected four startups to join the first North American cohort of its accelerator program, according to a press release. Sodexo Live! will tap its network of hospitality professionals, purveyors and culinary experts to help scale these companies further into the future of live events and entertainment.

The program focused on three business functions that are relevant for today's stadiums, arenas, convention centers, zoos, museums, aquariums, ski resorts, airport lounges and more. The themes were service excellence, guest/fan experience and operational optimization. Over 100 companies submitted applications for consideration.

From the initial global applicant pool, 12 startups and scale-ups were invited in October to pitch their business and vision to 300-plus senior leaders at Sodexo Live! and other industry stakeholders.

From this group, VisioLab, Nina Labs, Thermal Smart and gigl are the emerging technologies identified as the inaugural class of participating companies.

Each of these companies will collaborate with different facets of the business to drive adoption of emerging technologies at Sodexo Live! sites across North America.

The Inaugural class includes:

• VisioLab, a frictionless self-checkout solution for hospitality and retail locations. The POS innovation utilizes proprietary AI to better identify prepared and prepackaged food. The hardware can be deployed within a day and allows users to check out within a second.
• gigl, a job app which lets candidates apply to companies with a 60-second video in line with the consumption patterns of Gen-Z in a post-COVID environment.
• Nina, which offers a self-service experience with IoT pourers on spirits bottles that digitize and track every drop. This allows for real-time tracking of stock and inventory, and makes note of each drink self-served.
• Thermal Smart, an aerogel manufacturer which provides insulation solutions to help companies improve cold chain logistics performance, save operational costs and reduce CO2 emissions. The company provides materials from fabric-like covers for hot food to spray insulation for large cold storage.