BrazilBCG Digital Ventures to establish Singapore innovation centre
BCG Digital Ventures will launch a new innovation centre in Singapore before the middle of next year.
BCG Digital Ventures, the corporate venture and incubation wing of global management firm Boston Consulting Group, has laid out its plans to establish a Singapore Innovation Center in the spring of next year, geared toward accelerating regional innovation and entrenching the city-state’s reputation as one of the world’s premier start-up hubs. The venture will be supported by the Economic Development Board.
Bringing together a multi-disciplinary mix of entrepreneurial, investment, engineering and design talent under the one banner, BCGDV teams with leading corporates to invent, launch, and rapidly scale innovative ventures, with over 90 launched globally to date. Initially serviced from Sydney upon BCGDV’s founding in 2014, the Asian market has attracted increasing attention from the firm in recent times, with Singapore described as a critical hub in its plans.
“Southeast Asia is ripe with tremendous opportunities for digital transformation, and we believe corporates will drive the next horizon of innovation,” said BCG CEO Rich Lesser, who was at the helm for the launch of BCGDV. “We look forward to growing a significant Innovation Center in Singapore that will enable us to build and launch the next generation of corporate-backed unicorns in the region. Our relationship with the Singapore EDB only strengthens our position.”
“We are excited to partner with BCG Digital Ventures in supporting corporates to explore and build innovative new ventures,” said Chng Kai Fong, managing director of the EDB, which has previously partnered with BCG in launching an Industry 4.0-focused innovation centre in 2017. “We look forward to the new ventures BCGDV will create and the new and exciting business and job opportunities that these partnerships will bring for Singapore.”
BCGDV contends that its ongoing Asian expansion and latest centre – which is to join existing hubs in Tokyo and Shanghai – will lead to the creation of new jobs in the region, both within the firm and at the portfolio companies to be launched in collaboration with partners. Currently, BCGDV has a number of job openings for its operations in Singapore, including Director of Product Management and Lead venture Architect.
“We are thrilled to work alongside the EDB to help Asian and multinational corporations tap into the region’s strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, unlock value, and drive growth while solving real, human problems,” said BCGDV Asia lead Paul Hunyor. “By collaborating with these renowned corporate partners in the region, we have the opportunity to do just that – build ventures that have the power to transform their approach to innovation from the inside out.”
Hunyor will be joined in BCGDV Singapore’s leadership team by current managing director and partner Peter Cho, who has been with BCG for more than a decade, along with former Rocket Internet Asia CEO and current BCGDV partner and director Hanno Stegmann, a recent guest speaker at the 2019 Tech in Asia conference in Jakarta who re-joined the firm last year after an earlier six-year stint at BCG.
