Open Innovation online platform Agorize secures US$ 14.6M Series B funding
Singapore-based online platform for Open Innovation challenges Agorize has announced a US$ 14.6 million in Series B funding led by Creadev. Joining Creadev were Sofiouest and existing equity holders, Iris Capital and Capnamic Ventures.
Agorize stated that the new fund will be used to help the company stepping up its international growth and to meet the demand from corporate companies for Open Innovation solutions.
“The funds raised will allow us to consolidate our Open Innovation leadership by ramping up international growth, perfecting our technology even more and building on our community,” said Agorize CEO and co-founder, Charles Thou.
Agorize explained its service as “supporting the transformation and agility requirements of large corporates needing to ramp up the pace of their innovation development, bring about a shift in company culture and pinpoint talent and partners in innovation”.
Open Innovation is the belief that the best ideas can come from anywhere. Therefore, to ensure this openness, the belief encourages companies and organisations to engage with the best talents externally as well as internally to source the best solutions and accelerate transformation.
What Agorize does is facilitating the Open Innovation practice by connecting businesses and organisations with innovators from across the world through its platform. Agorize’s clients are enabled to involve their employees and Agorize’s community of innovative people, including students, developers, and startup to contribute ideas in strategic issues.
Using its Open Innovation SaaS (Software as a Service), clients can launch, manage and promote innovation challenges to an active community of five million innovators worldwide including students, developers, startup, designers, and more.
With the completion of this round, Agorize has raised up to US$19 million since the startup was founded in Paris in 2011.
The company said it has over 200 clients on-board around the world, serving companies like Amazon Web Services, Enterprise Singapore, LVMH Fashion Group, Schneider Electric, and Singapore Airlines.
To date, Agorize has opened offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Germany, and Canada.