Founder Spotlight: Jeffrey Tiong on Accelerating R&D Through AI-Powered Innovation Intelligence
Jeffrey Tiong is the founder and CEO of Patsnap, a global leader in AI-powered innovation intelligence. The Singapore-based tech company empowers R&D and IP teams to gain insights, accelerate discoveries, and protect groundbreaking achievements with unprecedented speed and precision. Today, Patsnap serves over 15,000 clients worldwide.
What inspired you to launch Patsnap, and what specific challenges were you aiming to address?
Back in 2006, when I was an exchange student at Wharton through the National University of Singapore’s entrepreneurship program, I interned at a local medical device startup. There, I saw something eye-opening – the company spent $1 million to acquire 13 patents from a bankrupt firm. It opened my eyes to how valuable patents could be.
During the due diligence process, I also encountered two major pain points: inefficient patent information retrieval and the use of overly technical, inaccessible language. This inspired me to develop an intelligent platform that would make patent information easily accessible and usable for both inventors and the public. Patsnap was created to address these challenges – simplifying complex intellectual property and innovation data to accelerate technological progress.
What has been the most surprising lesson you’ve learned as a founder?
The biggest realization early on was that a product’s strengths do not automatically translate into market acceptance. Initially, we invested significant resources into developing sophisticated features, only to find that many clients did not urgently need them or found them misaligned with their workflows.
This lesson taught us to listen more closely to customer needs and adopt a “customer-first” innovation principle. Shifting from an “engineer’s mindset” to a “value-delivery mindset” helped us earn the trust of more clients.
What makes Patsnap’s approach different?
AI technology has been a key driver of our sustained leadership in the innovation and intellectual property information services sector. From day one, we have invested heavily in AI R&D, integrating it into our products and services to deliver groundbreaking user experiences in real-world scenarios.
Our foundation lies in vast, high-quality innovation data, while our deep industry knowledge is what earns our clients’ trust. With over a decade of experience in the innovation ecosystem, we have developed profound expertise across specialized fields – from patents and R&D to biopharma, materials science, and tech-driven innovation.
Today, the rapid advancement of AI agents is accelerating large-scale AI adoption across industries. Yet, generic AI solutions often fall short of addressing the specialized challenges of technological innovation. At Patsnap, we’re capitalizing on this unique opportunity: by combining AI, data, and domain expertise, we’re well-positioned to stand out in this new wave of AI competition.
What was a pivotal moment in Patsnap’s journey, and how did your expansion from Singapore to China to a global footprint shape its trajectory?
Patsnap was founded in 2007 in Singapore, where the thriving entrepreneurial culture and government policies supporting startups enabled us to secure our first funding. In 2009, our first-generation product successfully secured its first major client – the National University of Singapore.
In 2011, we took a pivotal step by entering the Chinese market. With continuous product refinement and multiple rounds of funding, the company entered a period of rapid growth. However, Patsnap’s global expansion did not follow a linear “Singapore-to-China-to-world” trajectory. Soon after entering China in 2011, we opened a subsidiary in London, quickly expanding our reach across Europe, North America, Japan, Southeast Asia, and beyond.
If you could give one piece of advice to first-time entrepreneurs, what would it
be?
Entrepreneurship isn’t just about building a company – it’s about creating new possibilities. First, engage deeply with potential customers to understand their real pain points. Second, while ensuring survival, remain curious and exploratory. With limited resources, prioritize meeting current market needs while allocating a small portion to forward-looking investments, laying the groundwork for future innovation.
Drawing on your experience, what advice would you offer other entrepreneurs about the advantages they can leverage and the challenges they should anticipate when managing a global organization?
Being a global company gives us access to diverse regional markets and lets us attract talent from varied cultural backgrounds. This integration of resources and knowledge provides a better understanding of our clients and drives innovation.
That said, each region has its own unique set of cultural and professional practices, so it is important to avoid copying a single model. Instead, strategies need to be adapted locally. Managing teams across time zones and cultures requires an open corporate culture, efficient communication, and collaborative processes. Cross-cultural conflicts are inevitable. The key is addressing them through open dialogue and constructive discussions. That’s how you overcome market challenges.
What prompted Patsnap’s partnership with HSG, and how has this collaboration advanced your company’s goals and mission?
In 2016, Patsnap completed its Series C funding, led by HSG, which continued to invest in subsequent rounds. We believe HSG recognized the long-term value and potential of our AI-driven innovation intelligence services.
HSG provided critical funding for our expansion, R&D, and talent acquisition, which accelerated our growth. Through their global network, we gained opportunities to expand internationally, forge partnerships, and strengthen our brand influence.
How do you see your industry evolving over the next five years, and where does Patsnap fit into that future?
We believe AI is going to transform technological innovation at a pace and depth we’ve never seen before. Agentic AI, in particular, will likely become a key driver of the industry’s future development.
The integration of AI agents in innovation workflows is set to become mainstream. This shift will free innovation professionals from routine tasks, enabling them to focus on core creative work – deeper technical exploration, breakthrough R&D, and more effective collaboration.
At Patsnap, we spotted this trend early and recognized that AI agents for technological innovation represent a largely untapped market. We are accelerating our R&D efforts to develop specialized AI agent solutions for this space.
Beyond product development, we are exploring creating of an open community for innovation-focused AI agents – making AI an indispensable partner for tech innovators worldwide. Our goal is to empower global innovation organizations to work smarter and faster, ultimately accelerating the pace of technological advancement across the globe.