Deutsche Bank, Germany’s leading bank, has announced the opening of an Innovation Lab in Silicon Valley, with a launch event attended by its Co-Chief Executive John Cryan on Tuesday. The bank is working in partnership with IBM, which is contributing resources, expertise and relationships to the bank-led efforts.

The opening follows the successful launch of innovation labs in Berlin and London last year. The Palo Alto based lab will enable the bank to assess new and emerging technologies from Silicon Valley and apply them to enhance its products, services and internal processes. It will also further strengthen the bank’s ability to innovate, while deepening its relationships with start-ups.

“The Silicon Valley lab will help Deutsche Bank offer clients new and improved products and services, strengthen efficiency and deepen its relationships with the Valley’s innovation and investor communities”, Kim Hammonds, Group Chief Operating Officer of Deutsche Bank, said.

The launch event was attended by startups, venture capital firms along with Deutsche Bank clients and technology partners.

Cryan and Hammonds heard elevator pitches from 15 start-ups interested to work with the bank at the event. The early-stage startups pitched a range of ideas including software that analyses data in documents, an online identity verification portal and a number of blockchain-related initiatives.

The Bank's innovation lab team has been active in Silicon Valley since 2014, previously working from a local start-up accelerator centre. The team has met more than 500 start-ups in the Valley, introducing those with the most promising ideas to representatives from Deutsche Bank’s business divisions to trial and develops technology solutions.

The three innovation labs – “Deutsche Bank Labs” – form part of the digital element of the bank’s Strategy 2020. The bank plans to spend up to EUR 1 billion on digital initiatives over the next five years.