ABN AMRO, the government-owned Dutch bank, will launch the first of several internally developed startups on Nov. 24 called Seeds. ABN actually said it would launch Seeds, a crowdfunding venture, in May 2012. It is not clear why there was such a delay. Seeds is part of ABN’s internal innovation efforts, which include the launch of a new — and swank — Innovation Centre at ABN’s headquarters in Amsterdam. The Innovation Centre, which this blogger toured this week, looks out on ABN’s gargantuan trading floor, a remnant of ABN’s pre-crisis, pre-government intervention size. The Innovation Centre, replete with a porch swing bench hanging from the ceiling and offices walls of live plants, is centered on a large video screen displaying ABN’s pipeline of to-be-launched internal startups, which looked to number eight to ten ventures. Seeds is right at the end of the funnel, poised for launch. As for exactly what Seeds is, we’ll let you know after Nov. 24. ABN had nearly $530 billion of assets on its balance sheet at the end of the third quarter.
↧