credit: Kyvo disclosure
Founded in 2015 in São Paulo, Kyvo is a global innovation platform formed by professionals with a multidisciplinary profile, with the mission to design a more agile, creative and connected future for companies and organizations. The company is one of the partners of the ABES Startup Internship Program, an initiative that seeks to strengthen companies, generate synergy between investment funds, incubators and accelerators, in addition to helping businesses overcome the challenges of the markets in which they operate.
The startups participating in the ABES Startup Internship Program now have more than 33 years of ABES experience in the legal, regulatory, tax and marketing areas for a period of 6 months, free of charge. The package includes access to legal-tax duty, certificates for participation in tenders, legal advisors, guides, complete compliance infrastructure, health and dental plans, market research and committees on relevant industry topics.
To talk about this partnership, innovation, entrepreneurship and perspectives for startups, the ABES Portal interviewed *Hilton Menezes, founder and CEO of Kyvo, a global innovation platform that wants to create a more agile, creative and innovative future for companies. He has over 20 years of experience in Information Technology and Digital Business. In addition, he is co-creator of #movimentomoara, dedicated to fostering innovation for the sustainability and regeneration of the Amazon Basin. Kyvo works from three business units: consulting solutions, corporate acceleration and also strategic management of communication and brand reputation. It operates across the entire business ecosystem, using qualitative research methodologies, data analysis and service design for the development of products and services with a human-centered vision. In addition to its headquarters in São Paulo, Kyvo has a branch in Lisbon and active partnerships in Silicon Valley, Miami, London and Tel Aviv. Follow the interview!
How do you evaluate the partnership with ABES for the projects of startups supported by Kyvo?
Extremely relevant, especially given the moment of pandemic we are experiencing, because, by making ABES' experience in the legal, regulatory, tax and marketing areas available to startups, together with Kyvo's methodologies, we provide conditions for businesses to overcome the difficulties present in the market.
What are the differentials of Kyvo's performance in the innovation and entrepreneurship segment?
Kyvo has a set of services to address all the innovation needs of a company, from technology innovation to organizational culture, regardless of its size or complexity.
In consulting, based on anthropology and ethnographic research combined with service design methodology and data analysis, we study the behavior and needs of consumers to design the best business models and services to be implemented in companies.
In our organizational innovation arm, we create intrapreneurship programs, implement digital ideas management tools and train professionals in new agile and collaborative work models, thus promoting internal innovation within the company. Also on this front, we have a corporate accelerator, responsible for developing and implementing open innovation programs, in different segments/verticals, connected with the startup market.
Our most recent initiative was the creation of a strategic communications consultancy, which uses data science to leverage the reputation of brands and companies.
What is the Service Design methodology?
Design methodologies have been applied in various business sectors. Service design is a design specialization aimed at improving services and providing people with the best experience in their consumption journey. Today, it is unacceptable for an industry to create a (tangible) good or product without a product design, right? We think the same for the service economy (intangible). We believe that service design is essential for a service company (physical or digital) to stand out from its competitors.
How many startups and companies are invested and what are the main projects supported by Kyvo currently underway?
It is important to say that we are not an accelerator that invests directly in startups in exchange for an equity stake. We are a corporate accelerator, which creates programs for corporations or traditional businesses to accelerate their innovation with the help of startups.
Since 2017, we have carried out approximately 10 programs with companies such as Visa, EDP, Edenred, Estrella Galicia and others. We evaluated over 2000 startups and accelerated around 120 selected. As a result, we have 66% of startups with signed contracts or developing projects with corporations, accelerating the business of both. We also make startups more efficient, as the mortality rate of those who go through our program is 15%, compared to a market rate above 50%.
Do you have any success stories (already in an advanced stage of execution or concluded) that you would like to mention?
The projects mentioned above are already examples of successful cases of startups. But I will cite a case carried out by our innovation consultancy and another by our strategic communication management. At the end of 2019, Banco BS2 was preparing to launch its digital arm and needed to better understand if the services and strategies set up for the target audience already thought of by the bank made sense. Our consultancy showed that the target audience did not make sense, presented new consumer profiles that better related to the bank's strategies and created a new roadmap of digital services for them. From this experience, BS2 started to adopt service design as an essential discipline within its work teams.
On the communication front, we've been helping startups achieve something valuable for those facing the challenges of establishing a new business: building a solid reputation. We do this with an experienced team of journalists linked to innovation topics, which complements Kyvo's solutions, as, in addition to structuring new businesses, we show it to a wide audience. A recent example is Lar.app, invested by the German fund GFC.
What are the main challenges for entrepreneurs and investors who support startups? How to get return on investment?
The challenge is always about the ability to return on the investment made. At times like this, of course, having good cash flow guarantees longevity. But not only that. The name of the game is resilience; and having it means making choices, which are often not popular. Therefore, the market is changing animals. Leaving behind the unicorn and betting on “camel” startups, an analogy is those that are capable of traversing great distances, even if they are arid, and reaching the end delivering results.
What are the challenges and perspectives for Venture Capital (VC) with the pandemic?
Venture Capital, very much in line with this strategy of valuing camel startups, is keeping an eye on the enterprise's ability to survive. Of course, a good investment thesis will find space, even in a tougher market. Even because Venture Capital fund managers are not going to put their eggs in a single basket. The idea is to diversify investments, with the usual rigor of business predictability, growth, ability to face adversity and return on the operation. The pandemic has toughened the game, but crises are like that. They make everything more selective and that's good. Therefore, VC fund managers will look for opportunities everywhere, both Brazilians abroad and those abroad.
A good example is Magnamed, a startup that produces lung ventilators, an essential product in this pandemic, and a Kyvo customer in Reputation. The company received seed capital from BNDES via KPTK, a VC fund manager, and proved not only to be resilient to the pandemic, but also a commitment by the national industry to the production of medical equipment for the treatment of Covid-19. This, in a portfolio diversification scenario, is essential to balance risk.
*Hilton Menezes – Founder and CEO of Kyvo, a global innovation platform, who want to create a more agile, creative and innovative future for companies. He has over 20 years of experience in Information Technology and Digital Business. It works with innovation from organizational culture to technology, running Digital Transformation, Intrapreneurship and Open Innovation programs in partnership with innovation centers in Silicon Valley, Israel, London, Spain and Portugal. Co-creator of #movimentomoara, dedicated to fostering innovation for sustainability and regenerability in the Amazon Basin. He is Co-founder of Service Design Network Brazil, specialist in business from FGV and in strategic design from Instituto Europeo Di Design.
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