PatSnap, short for patents in a snap, was born out of Jeffrey Tiong’s hope to help those who aren’t intellectual property experts easily understand and use patent search and analysis. The R&D analytics company was founded back in 2007, two years after his work-cum-study stint at a medical-device start-up in the US, where he handled intellectual property due diligence.

The founder and CEO of PatSnap, Tiong, who studied biomedical engineering at the National University of Singapore, set up PatSnap with SG$55,000 from a student start-up grant. The company currently has prominent investors in SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Tencent Investment and Sequoia China. In 2021, it reached unicorn status when it hit a valuation topping US$1 billion following its US$300m Series E round.

Tiong, who counts NASA, A*STAR, China Mobile, Ferrari and Starbucks among his clients, was named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2018 and represented Singapore at the awards ceremony the following year in Monte Carlo.