Singapore's EDB features The Scale Factory

Singapore Global Network publishes a profile of co-founder Pierre Mårtensson — tracing TSF's origins to 1994 Singapore.

Singapore's Economic Development Board, through its Singapore Global Network platform, has published a profile on The Scale Factory co-founder Pierre Mårtensson: "From door-to-door salesman to venture capital leader: How Pierre Mårtensson built his career in Singapore from scratch."

The piece traces Pierre's arrival in Singapore in 1994 — with little more than a borrowed map and an Electrolux vacuum cleaner — and follows the path that led him and Lars Bjørge to found The Scale Factory.

The firm was built on a particular conviction: that companies expanding abroad rarely fail for lack of strategy. They fail because the strategy arrives without a team. One person, sent to carry a whole new market, learning the ground as they go, while patience back home runs out.

The Scale Factory was built on the opposite model — a commercial team built and run in-market until the business is profitable and self-sustaining. It's the approach behind Bannerflow's APAC growth: profitable in the region inside 14 months, now in its fourth year with a six-person team on the ground.

Today The Scale Factory is a five-partner firm — Pierre Mårtensson, Lars Bjørge, Thomas Haugan, Aadi Vaidya and Aaron Wild — with partners in Oslo, Berlin, Dubai and Singapore, and a delivery team of 20 across Europe and Asia.

If you're a company serious about scaling your next market, get in touch.

Read the full feature on Singapore Global Network →