rready, has raised a $4 million Series A led by FYRFLY Venture Partners with EquityPitcher Ventures, Verve Ventures, Swisscom Ventures, and angel investors participating. The round also includes a non-dilutive growth credit from UBS, Switzerland’s leading bank. rready will use the funds to commercialize its newly built AI-powered platform. The API-first software can be leveraged to support different use cases such as open innovation, hackathons, accelerators, or continuous improvement ideas. The latest solution has already delivered $8 million in cost savings and revenue during a yearlong pilot at a company with a $30B+ market cap. rready becomes the number one provider of an innovation operating system for corporates looking for a scalable solution leading to measurable results.
Innovation remains an ongoing challenge for mature organizations. Hierarchy, gut feeling, and fear of failure often stifle innovation or misdirect it. Still, the threat of disruption and “war for talent” have motivated enterprises to find a solution to those barriers. rready is that solution for over 40 global companies, which have used it to validate thousands of employees’ ideas and implement hundreds of projects including new customer experiences, products, patents, and spinoffs.
Recent highlights include:
- Siemens Energy, which secured 12 new patents in 18 months using rready.
- Implenia’s patented, eco-friendly tunnel construction method, developed using rready.
- Swisscom’s automated video streaming product for sports, which resulted in Asport, a spinout venture.
rready’s flagship product combines a SaaS platform for visibility, innovation accounting, and project execution with a physical KICKBOX (literally, a box) that guides employees through formulating, vetting, and launching innovations. Different from a mere project management platform, rready provides a network of service providers and coaches who can be hired on demand to fill gaps and keep a project moving.
rready's Co-founders (from left): Reto Wenger, Dave Hengartner, Ralph Hartmeier & Vinzenz Leuenberger
KICKBOX is an open-source innovation methodology invented by Mark Randall, a serial entrepreneur who sold a company to Adobe and stayed on to teach his innovation techniques. That led him to create KICKBOX. It has since been battle-tested at companies like 3M, Cisco, Caterpillar, MasterCard, P&G, and Swisscom, where rready’s four co-founders first discovered it in 2015. They then developed a successful KICKBOX platform for Swisscom and spun out rready in 2021 to sell their concept to other companies. As part of the Series A, Mark Randall has officially joined rready’s board of directors along with Roger Wüthrich, former Chief Digital Officer at Swisscom.
“While creativity is innately human,” said Randall, “KICKBOX showed the world how to channel employee creativity into tangible innovation in an enterprise context. rready’s breakthrough was to adapt KICKBOX innovation into a repeatable, scalable process companies can deploy in the most impactful, measurable way. The result is a platform organizations worldwide are using to drive a predictable funnel of innovations.”
"The missing ingredient for enterprises was a sound innovation methodology,” said FYRFLY General Partner Philipp Stauffer, who helped many Fortune 500 Companies develop their innovation and venture initiatives globally as a consultant at Accenture. “Most innovation efforts fail because of internal barriers, not because of talent. To unleash innovation, it has to be proactively led and culturally encouraged. rready facilitates both.”
“The new funding will allow us to grow our customer base, evolve our product portfolio, keep investing in AI, and continue to deliver cutting-edge solutions that enable companies to unleash the full innovation potential of their employees.”, said Dave Hengartner, CEO and co-founder of rready.
Media Contact:
Ralph Hartmeier
Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer, rready
Email: ralph@rready.com
rready develops SaaS solutions that make employee-driven innovation fun, scalable, and results-oriented. Their flagship solution, the KICKBOX innovation program, is based on a methodology initially developed at Adobe that enables organizations to harness the creativity of their employees, effectively validate ideas, and drive successful projects. rready clients include Tetra Pak, ZF Group, Compeer, and Swisscom. Headquartered in Switzerland with offices in the US, Netherlands, and Brazil, rready is revolutionizing the way companies innovate.
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