Zurich, Prague: Creative Dock Group (CDG), Europe's and MENA's largest independent corporate venture builder, has acquired the top-notch strategic-innovation company IdeaSense. The fourth acquisition this year responds to the significant growth in demand for comprehensive and high-quality services in digitalization and digital services and products, and also brings CDG closer to its goal of building ventures and products with their clients which would be used by 1bn people worldwide in the next five years. Over the past decade, IdeaSense has become a leader in innovation, growing and expanding its client portfolio, and improving its service offering. IdeaSense brings a unique methodology, its software platform Ideapoly and industry expertise in construction, manufacturing and telecommunications. CDG thus spent over EUR 55 million on acquisitions in the last 12 months.
IdeaSense will significantly strengthen the Innovation and Strategy Team. Combining know-how from four established companies under the CDG roof, the team has developed unique methodologies for full-service, future-oriented corporate venture building by merging their respective expertise in strategic foresight, human-centered design, strategy consulting, and cutting-edge innovation approaches.
Martin Pejsa, Founder & CEO of Creative Dock Group, says: “The IdeaSense team has done a great job over more than ten years and has perfected its innovative know-how, which is highly valued in the CEE market. IdeaSense developed the Ideapoly cutting-edge tool for successful strategic innovation using gaming principles, crowd wisdom and prediction markets. With IdeaSense, we gain a team of like-minded people with profound expertise in research and testing. IdeaSense's competence, excellent reputation and long-term client relationships have made it an unmissable entity in the innovation field. With this acquisition, we are improving services for our clients, not only in the CEE region but the whole of Europe and the Middle East. The acquisition gives IdeaSense a great opportunity to turn its original ideas into real products that positively impact people's lives."
IdeaSense focused all the energy of the last decade on perfecting the initial phases of venture building – ideation, product design, and testing. This focus translates into a great methodology, a sense of loyalty of its clients towards the company, a strong team, and a software product that puts the entire Creative Dock Group at the forefront of the competition in the testing phase. For both the companies’ clients, the acquisition means expanded capabilities – increased diversity of services, profound knowledge of other industries, as well as the ability to scale projects better across Europe and the Middle East.
Rudolf Cihak, CEO and co-founder of IdeaSense, says: "During our ten years on the market, we have been continually improving the quality of our innovation process, and thus ensuring the viability of new business concepts for our clients. We proudly bring all this experience and the related know-how to Creative Dock Group. We look forward to seeing how our cooperation will enable the creation of revolutionary new products and services on the international markets."
Katerina Ailova Cihakova, co-founder and partner of IdeaSense, adds: "The combination of the best of both companies, especially in the area of developing innovation methodologies, will give our clients a competitive advantage when establishing new business activities."
IdeaSense expands Creative Dock Group’s industry expertise to include manufacturing, construction and telecommunications. The strategic-innovation company built a refined methodology of Innovation Farms based on many years of experience in designing innovative products and services. The methodology includes the unique Ideapoly software platform. It is a so-called prediction market that accurately predicts the future success of an innovative concept on the market in the future. Ideapoly is based on the principles of stock markets (stock exchanges) and is enriched with behavioral analyses from which insights can be gained into the value and future market potential of individual innovative concepts or strategies.
IdeaSense has successful references across various industries. Examples include the prototype of the wall construction robot for Wienerberger, the world's largest manufacturer of building materials and infrastructure solutions. IdeaSense created the My Healthy Finance service concept for Erste Bank, which is now used by more than 1.2 million clients. IdeaSense has experience with corporate transformations (O2 SK, mobile carrier), corporate innovation ecosystems (Tatrabanka, Slovak bank) and the introduction of innovative processes in companies (Digiteq Automotive, innovations for the automotive industry).
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About Creative Dock Group
In 10 years, the Creative Dock Group (CDG) has grown from a disruptive Czech startup into the largest independent corporate venture builder. The Creative Dock Group is the leader of a growing young category called Company Venture Building, helping large companies find and bring in new revenue by creating new services and products. CDG designs, builds and scales new products and services on this basis. The Creative Dock Group operates primarily in Europe and the Middle East and over the last decade, CDG has built more than 100 ventures in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa across different industries, including fintech, insurtech, e-commerce, retail, logistics, construction, manufacturing, etc. The Creative Dock Group currently employs more than 500 people. CDG’s goal is to build ventures and products with their clients that will be used by 1bn people worldwide in the next five years. Over the past year, the Creative Dock Group has accelerated its growth and expanded its services by acquiring established European companies Spark Works, Switzerland’s leading innovation firm, the German Rohrbeck Heger, a leading European strategic foresight firm, and FoundersLane, a corporate venture builder active in Europe and the MENA. CDG has key offices in Berlin, Zurich, Prague, Riyadh and Vienna. The Creative Dock Group has a long list of impressive clients, e.g. Adidas, Allianz, Ahold, Avast, Henkel, Mondelēz, Raiffeisen Bank International, Saptco, Société Générale, SwissRe, Talanx Group, Trumpf, Vattenfall, Veolia and others.
About IdeaSense
The reputable innovation studio IdeaSense was established in 2012 and is considered the leader in its specialization on the Czech market. It designs long-term prospering products, services and business models for global and local clients across industries. IdeaSense was founded by Kateřina Čiháková Ailová and Rudolf Čihák. A great team composed of talented designers, researchers and strategists is behind the firm's success. Innovative methods are also crucial – for instance, human-centered design or Jobs-To-Be-Done. Furthermore, the company is continuously adjusting itself to fit the most recent trends and findings. IdeaSense is making good use of its own platform Ideapoly, which integrates crowdsourcing of ideas and predictive markets in order to model the real success of prototypes in the marketplace. The multidisciplinary expertise of IdeaSense is focused on innovations in fintech and banking, mechanical engineering, the construction industry, automotive, social services, and more, always overlapping with the circular economy and ecological sustainability. Collaboration with clients usually takes place in the form of the so-called Innovation farms®, focusing the know-how and creative potential of the entire team on maximizing the market success and sustainability of a new solution. Apart from the full service in the innovation development field, IdeaSense also provides supervision over the execution of individual projects or the implementation of innovations through its subsidiary startups, and its previous clients include Erste, Česká Spořitelna, Komerční banka, Wienerberger, ČEZ, VISA or Tesco. Additionally, the company helps companies activate their own innovation potential by setting up internal innovation ecosystems.
Press Contact:
Creative Dock Group
Tomáš Kolder
Interim Chief Marketing Officer & External Communication Lead
Email: tomas.kolder@creativedock.com
IdeaSense
Gabriela Vlková
Account Manager
Email: gabriela.vlkova@rubikonpr.cz
