Switzerland Global Enterprise Opts for Novertur

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13.01.2015

Lausanne-based Novertur announces an agreement for a pilot project with Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) for the use of its patent-pending business matchmaking technology. S-GE, which initially supported the collaboration project between Novertur and HE-Arc, is now the first client of the automated trade partner identification tool, specifically designed for trade promotion agencies.

Novertur developed its technology in collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences HE-Arc through a project co-financed by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI). The trade partner identification tool is an online solution using big data processing and artificial intelligence in order to generate market-entry reports quickly and automatically. It allows also to execute industrial analyses and to identify geographic clusters thanks to a user interface enabling smart visualization of processed data. Other trade promotion agencies have shown interest in using Novertur business matchmaking tool in 2015 in order to put big data technologies at the service of SMEs’ internationalization.

Artificial Intelligence and Big Data to support the internationalization of SMEs
Foreign trade partner search and associated market researches are complex processes requiring considerable time in order to collect relevant information and analyze them in an intelligent manner. Therefore, most international trade consultants spend weeks in order to compile a list of potential export partners for their client in a country of interest. This is one of the recurring tasks of Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), the trade promotion agency supporting Swiss SMEs to export and foreign companies to invest on Swiss territory.

Novertur, a Lausanne-based startup specializing in online business matchmaking and big data, has closed an agreement with S-GE in order to facilitate their trade partner search effort. With this first pilot project, the agency will test a new technology in order to support the internationalization of Swiss SMEs. With the right tools and strategy, big data and artificial intelligence allow to better understand economic mechanisms and to automate some activities which are currently very time-consuming for organizations. A solution specifically designed for the activity of S-GE could enable the agency to optimize some of its processes while improving the quality and speed of its services.

This forward-thinking strategy of S-GE delights Novertur, which can now count on the Swiss agency for its business development of 2015. “After supporting us for the collaboration project with HE-Arc, S-GE confirms its interest towards our technology with this agreement. This is excellent news for us!” says Florent Schlaeppi, Co-founder and CEO of the startup based in Lausanne. Indeed, in December 2013, the Swiss trade promotion agency supported Novertur and the University Haute Ecole Arc (HES-SO) in their request for a grant for a technology partnership through the Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI) of the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. This project was carried out and successfully completed in September 2014. In the meantime, Novertur filed a patent on the technology that was developed.

Since then, the Novertur team works on implementing this innovation on an online tool dedicated to trade promotion agencies and other international trade consultants. This solution enables to generate market-entry reports automatically with lists of potential distributors, suppliers, allies and competitors on a given market. The only required input is the website address of the client company. Then, a semantic analysis of the website’s data allows Novertur to compare it to websites’ data of all the companies on the market and to rank the most relevant potential partners with their contact information. The startup also develops an industrial clusters’ identification tool with a geographic display of the matches and features to analyze them.

The first version of this online tool will be accessible from February on, with S-GE at the top of the users’ list. Other export and investment promotion agencies in Europe and the world have expressed their interest in using Novertur’s tool when it will launch. However, the Swiss startup does not hide its particular enthusiasm about this agreement with Switzerland Global Enterprise. “We are glad to have S-GE, a Swiss organization, among our first customers. We think that it is essential to be able to convince people within our own borders, and this agreement is a fantastic example of that” concludes Florent Schlaeppi.

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