Intelligent matchmaking between entrepreneurs and investors
ups to access funding. A team of BFH researchers supports the continued development of the platform in order to improve matchmaking effectiveness and flexibility.
Factsheet
- Lead school School of Engineering and Computer Science
- Institute(s) Institute for Data Applications and Security (IDAS)
- Research unit(s) IDAS / Business Information Systems Engineering (BISE)
- Funding organisation Innosuisse
- Duration (planned) 22.11.2022 - 22.05.2023
- Project management Prof. Dr. Jürgen Vogel
- Head of project Prof. Dr. Jürgen Vogel
- Partner Honestmonday Gmbh
- Keywords Intelligent matchmaking, start-up, entrepreneurship
Situation
honestmonday (honestmonday.ch) was founded in 2021 with the goal of simplifying and accelerating the creation and sustainable financing of start-ups. It is a fact that the search for financial resources is a time-consuming and complex task for companies: potential funders (public funding, private investors, foundations or banks) must be contacted individually. They use different application forms or business plans, and usually have different tendering processes. As a rule, there is a 6-month delay between the application and the decision, and success often depends on the quality of one’s personal network. To make this process quicker and easier, honestmonday has developed a web-based digital platform that acts as a marketplace for entrepreneurs and investors. A research project conducted in collaboration with BFH’s Institute for Data Applications and Security IDAS aims to upgrade the platform and to improve matchmaking effectiveness and flexibility.
Course of action
For the moment, honestmonday’s platform offers its users a simple search function that matches predefined categories of the business plan. The aim of the project is to prepare the implementation of even more effective and flexible matchmaking. To this end, the project team will address various questions, for example: which methods are suitable for searching for and automatically matching business plans and investor profiles? How can start-ups be supported in entering a business plan? How can investors be supported in searching for and analysing results? And what are the content-related and technical requirements for the basic data models (business plan, user profiles)? From an IT perspective, the main innovation lies in the intelligent matchmaking between entrepreneurs and investors, based on the business plan on the one hand and the search profile on the other. This will also be enabled by providing support in data collection to users and by the automatic validation and evaluation of a business plan.
Result
honestmonday expects concrete results such as insights into potential improvements and simplifications in the collection, evaluation and visualisation of relevant data, recommendations for the structured modelling and storage of relevant data, and prototypical implementation of a matchmaking procedure. Based on the knowledge gained and considering the available resources, honestmonday will be able to draw up a research and development plan for the further development of the platform, which will allow it to be established as quickly as possible and with attractive functions in the target market.
