Johnson & Johnson, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, and Diebold Nixdorf Join Work-Bench as Enterprise-In-Residence Partners

NEW YORK, Nov. 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Work-Bench, an enterprise technology venture fund in New York City, is excited to announce their three newest Enterprise-In-Residence Partners: Johnson & Johnson, a global pharmaceuticals company, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), Japan's leading financial services company, and Diebold Nixdorf, a global financial and retail self-service, software and services corporation.

As Enterprise-in-Residence Partners, Johnson & Johnson, SMFG, and Diebold Nixdorf will have unparalleled access to Work-Bench's greater enterprise community and portfolio of curated venture-backed enterprise startups, and will work closely with Work-Bench to identify cutting-edge solutions used by some of the world's most sophisticated organizations.

As Jessica Lin, Work-Bench's Co-founder & General Partner, says, "We're excited to welcome three companies whose work we admire, who we've witnessed provide meaningful and collaborative feedback back to the startup community, and who we've seen take products from POCs through to production. It's a great opportunity for our startups to learn from some of the most forward-thinking corporate executives, and for these corporate executives to have access to some of the most innovative technology solutions on the planet."

With this announcement, Work-Bench is excited to formally launch the program publicly and bring on new Enterprise-in-Residence Partners (EIR) in 2018. Johnson & Johnson, SMFG, and Diebold Nixdorf join past Fortune 1000 Enterprise-In-Residence Partners Merck and Accenture.

As Mark Landy, VP of Enterprise Architecture at Johnson & Johnson, says, "Being an Enterprise-in-Residence Partner has allowed us to amplify the companies we meaningfully engage with by an order of magnitude, enabling us to "see around the corner" and allowing us to push the needle in areas where our industry has yet to explore. Having worked out of Work-Bench's 32,000 sq. ft. workspace in Union Square, we've seen first-hand how quickly well-vetted enterprise technology startups can add tremendous value to our organization, and through their executive briefings and corporate roundtables, Work-Bench and the tech ecosystem has helped us stay ahead of the technology curve, keeping us plugged in on emerging solutions and informed on what our peers are thinking through."

According to Tomoaki Nakayama, General Manager of IT Innovation at SMFG, "Work-Bench has been instrumental in helping us keep a pulse on the trends driving the early-stage enterprise technology in New York City. By understanding where our technology strategy is heading and where our priorities lay, Work-Bench has been able to help us cut through a lot of the noise and marketing hype in the ecosystem to identify and shortlist a number of best in breed startups and innovation partners."

Stefan Merz, Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development at Diebold Nixdorf, said, "As we continue to collaborate with innovative partners to drive connected commerce across the digital and physical channels of banking and retail, we are pleased to be partnering with Work-Bench to engage with the greater ecosystem of early-stage companies building next generation technologies across data and analytics, Internet of Things, enterprise software and more."

For these select Fortune 1000 Enterprise-in-Residence Partners, this will be a unique opportunity to drive business impact and enable net new efficiencies while avoiding the fluff of typical innovation initiative mishaps, by offering workspace at Work-Bench's hub for the thriving NYC tech innovation ecosystem, engagement with NYC's thriving enterprise startup ecosystem, and connections with forward-thinking corporate peers.  

About Johnson & Johnson
Caring for the world, one person at a time, inspires and unites the people of Johnson & Johnson. We embrace research and science - bringing innovative ideas, products and services to advance the health and well-being of people. Our approximately 130,800 employees at more than 250 Johnson & Johnson operating companies work with partners in health care to touch the lives of over a billion people every day, throughout the world.

About Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. is a holding company headquartered in Tokyo for Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (the Bank) and its subsidiaries. The Company operates through four segments: Commercial Banking, Leasing, Securities and Consumer Finance to a range of customers including corporations, mid-sized companies, small-sized companies, individuals, governments and governmental entities.

About Diebold Nixdorf
Diebold Nixdorf is a world leader in enabling connected commerce for millions of consumers each day across the financial and retail industries. Its software-defined solutions bridge the physical and digital worlds of cash and consumer transactions conveniently, securely and efficiently. As an innovation partner for nearly all of the world's top 100 financial institutions and a majority of the top 25 global retailers, Diebold Nixdorf delivers unparalleled services and technology that are essential to evolve in an 'always on' and changing consumer landscape.

About Work-Bench
Work-Bench is an enterprise technology venture capital fund in New York City. We invest in the next generation of enterprise startups tackling Machine Learning and advanced analytics, cloud-native infrastructure, next-gen security, and more. We support early go-to-market enterprise startups with workspace, community, and corporate engagement to accelerate customer acquisition and product validation with Fortune 1000 corporations.

Contact:
Allie Felix
Community Associate, Work-Bench
[email protected]
727-365-8152

SOURCE Work-Bench