SwitchPitch's challenge platform turned a time-consuming application review process into a structured deal flow, enabling project teams to evaluate and select the right startup partners with confidence.
When a large pharmaceutical organization runs open innovation challenges, the response volume is significant. Each challenge can draw 20 to 30 startup applications, each requiring review, comparison, and communication back to multiple internal project teams.
Without a structured system, the effort required to aggregate, assess, and brief stakeholders on incoming applications consumed enormous time from the innovation team, limiting the number of challenges they could run and reducing the quality of information reaching the teams who needed it most.
SwitchPitch enables the company's Challenge Management team to post challenges, collect applications, and automatically aggregate startup submissions into a structured PDF that project teams can actually use. Rather than receiving a pile of raw applications, each team gets a synthesized comparison that makes evaluation practical.
The challenge is also promoted through LinkedIn and innovation summits, ensuring the applicant pool includes qualified startups the company would not encounter through internal networks alone.
Each project team now receives a structured, comparable view of 20 to 30 startup candidates rather than an unmanaged inbox of applications. The deal flow process narrows the field from full applicant pool to five to seven finalists to one selected pilot partner in a repeatable, scalable way.
