Claus Nehmzow

I am an independent deep tech advisor and business development operator, officially based in Singapore and most of the time working from Da Nang in Vietnam. I have more than 30 years in technology, innovation and commercialisation and have been in Asia since 2008 (Hong Kong, Singapore, now Vietnam).

Most of my career I spent on the buyer side of innovation. At BP I was Head of Digital Innovation Asia Pacific and did deal diligence together with BP Ventures. At Eastern Pacific Shipping in Singapore I was Chief Innovation Officer and built and ran the EPS-Techstars maritime accelerator. In these roles I looked at several hundred startups from the corporate side, so I know quite well why pilots in shipping, ports, oil and gas and heavy industry succeed or die.

Today I work with a handful of deep tech companies as advisor: AI-driven discovery of novel materials, robotics, maritime cleantech and IT services out of Vietnam. My main value for founders is Asia go-to-market: who the real buyer is, how to get to the first industrial customers in Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and the wider region, and how to structure pilots so they turn into revenue. I also write critical written reviews of pitch decks and business plans, the kind of feedback founders normally only get after they lost the deal.

I am an angel investor (early investor in Shazam, in quantum computing in Singapore and in several maritime startups) and sit on the mentor benches of Techstars, Plug and Play APAC, Start2 Group and Unreasonable.

Happy to talk to Fellows who want to enter Southeast Asia, sell to shipping, ports, oil and gas or manufacturing, or simply want a frank second opinion on their plan.