butterfly & elephant: Management, Investment Committee and first start-ups confirmed

The butterfly & elephant accelerator by GS1 Germany gains a strong startup expert for management with Benjamin Birker and five proven top industry and startup experts for the Investment Committee with Thomas Alt, Jacob Fatih, Meinrad Lugan, Ralf Pütmann, and Kay Schiebur. At the start, two startups – SLACE and pickshare – are already pleased to join the program.

The idea behind butterfly and elephant stands for transformation and strength and highlights the diversity of experiences and perspectives present at butterfly & elephant, as well as the vision that collaboration leads to growth and success. This is a vision also shared by Managing Director Benjamin Birker: "Seizing opportunities or creating chances – that has always been my approach. This attitude has enabled me to be responsible for growth strategies and business innovations for medium-sized companies and corporations."

With Birker, butterfly & elephant gains a managing director who brings many years of experience as a pioneer for innovations, including in the areas of business development, transformation, and digitization at renowned companies such as Douglas, MediaSaturn, adidas, or Telekom. As a former co-founder of a service and investment company, he was responsible for corporate strategy and successfully built a diverse business. He now wants to bring these experiences into the accelerator.
"I’m now looking forward to contributing my expertise to butterfly & elephant – to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs and to be inspired myself," says Birker.
 

The Investment Committee

He is supported in his mission by an investment committee consisting of five industry experts.

• Thomas Alt is an experienced entrepreneur and founder in the software and consumer electronics industry. The tech expert has held leadership roles at Apple in California and is the founder of ramblr.ai, a platform specializing in the use of AI and computer vision to enhance the analysis of video data.
• Jacob Fatih is a pioneering founder who has launched several successful businesses in the fitness industry and is also the founder of the startup incubator Crealize.
• Dr. Meinrad Lugan is the healthcare expert on the Investment Committee. He is involved in multiple startups in the fields of diagnostics, medical devices, and AI, and regularly serves as a mentor to international healthcare startups.
• Ralf Pütmann is a founder, investor, and advisor, and serves on the supervisory boards of several companies. His expertise lies in the retail sector, having worked for Peek & Cloppenburg KG, Metro Group AG, and GALERIA Kaufhof GmbH, among others.
• Kay Schiebur is Executive Board Member for Services at the Otto Group, responsible for managing national and international logistics activities as well as the Baur Group. He is also a board member of the German Logistics Association (BVL) and a supervisory board member of GS1 Germany.

With this diversity of experience and perspectives, combined with the strong GS1 Germany community, butterfly & elephant aims to empower startups and support them in scaling their businesses. At this year’s ECR Day, the first companies in the accelerator program were introduced.

First Startups

• SLACE ist eine WhatsApp Marketing Lösung, die sich auf den filialisierten, stationären Handel und die Konsumgüterindustrie fokussiert. WhatsApp-Marketing ersetzt dabei nicht nur den Handzettel, sondern ermöglicht eine interaktive lokale Angebotskommunikation, personalisiert auf Shopper:innen und Kontext. Im 1-zu-1 Kanal führt dies, ohne Streuverlust, messbar zu nachhaltigen Ergebnissen und mehr Kundenfrequenz. Gemeinschaftlich mit der Industrie refinanziert sich der Kanal über “Retail Media in WhatsApp”. Das 2020 gegründete Berliner Unternehmen war von Anfang an GS1 Germany Solution Partner. Nun ist SLACE das erste Investment des neuen GS1 Germany Accelerators. Roland Siebert, Gründer und Geschäftsführer von SLACE sagt hierzu: “Mit unserem Conversational Retail Fokus ist GS1 Germany seit unserer Gründung einer unserer wichtigsten Partner gewesen.” Zudem betont er die Relevanz von GS1 Standards für die Arbeit des Startups: “Der GS1 Digital Link Standard ermöglicht uns, auch die Shopper-Interaktion mit Produkten als weiteren Teil einer personalisierten Shopper-Kommunikation zu integrieren.“
• pickshare is redesigning cities through circular city logistics, creating unique doorstep experiences for people. The company focuses on four core industries: retail, CEP (courier, express, parcel), reusables, and recyclables solutions. The main goal is to orchestrate the entire logistics value chain in urban areas—by technologically and operationally consolidating goods flows based on recipient preferences for both supply and disposal in households and businesses.
  "The butterfly & elephant accelerator by GS1 Germany is a perfect strategic partner for our company, as GS1’s extensive network across industry and retail helps pickshare establish and promote the necessary standards for non-discriminatory collaboration in circular logistics," says managing partner Björn Marc Paulus.
  According to Paulus, this standardization significantly advances efficiency and sustainability in the supply chain and enables the exploration of new business opportunities. würden laut Paulus für pickshare Effizienz und Nachhaltigkeit in der Lieferkette maßgeblich vorangetrieben und die Erschließung neuer Geschäftsfelder ermöglicht. 

With the newly established accelerator in 2024, GS1 Germany is laying the foundation for a space dedicated to developing and building successful companies. butterfly & elephant is equipped with investment capital to quickly and flexibly support business models with potential and added value for the GS1 community. In addition to capital, the collaboration is enriched by deep industry knowledge and expertise in GS1 standards – all embedded within GS1 Germany’s strong network. A win-win-win situation at the very least.

Press contact:

GS1 Germany GmbH
Tassja Wagner
Manager Corporate Communications
Stolberger Straße 108 a, 50933 Cologne
Fon: +49 170 7009027
Email: tassja.wagner@gs1.de