Markus Haense is one of four co-founders of Patsnap, alongside Jeffrey Tiong, Guan Dian and Ray Chohan. He served as chief technology officer. Tiong is the founder and chief executive.
Patsnap began with Tiong's frustration with patent research during an internship in Philadelphia, where government patent sites were hard to use. The first money was a S$55,000 grant from the Media Development Authority's iJam programme. The company had to build its own search layer on top of hard-to-use patent databases.
The product became a subscription platform for innovation and intellectual property intelligence. Corporate research and development teams, including customers such as Dyson and DJI, paid for access. Patsnap raised a $38 million Series D in 2018.
In March 2021 a Series E valued Patsnap above $1 billion. By then it had more than 10,000 customers and over 700 staff.