Rogo Opens Singapore Hub, Targets 200 APAC Staff for Broader Bank AI Push

Rogo Technologies is opening a Singapore office as the hub of its Asia-Pacific expansion, recruiting in Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney. It plans to employ 150 to 200 people in the region by the end of 2027 while broadening its bank AI offering beyond junior-banker workflows.

From junior-banker tasks to a wider bank pitch

Rogo became known for automating routine work often assigned to junior bankers, including spreadsheets and presentation slides. The expansion pairs those established workflow tools with a broader product pitch for banks.

The company began as a Princeton undergraduate project in 2019. By 2022, John Willett and Gabriel Stengel had left their banking jobs to build it full time with computer scientist Tumas Rackaitis; Willett had worked at JPMorgan Chase and Stengel at Lazard.

Rogo was valued at US$2 billion in an April fundraising round led by Kleiner Perkins. Its regional headcount target remains a plan, not a completed hiring milestone.

Singapore becomes the operating base

Willett said Rogo needs local staff to serve Asian customers. He cited Singapore’s talent pool, regional connectivity and history as a landing point for Western firms expanding into Asia. Rogo’s Asian presence has been concentrated in India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, he said.

Singapore tops the International Monetary Fund’s AI Preparedness Index among 174 countries. A 2026 Finastra survey found that 64% of the city-state’s financial institutions were actively deploying AI across key business functions.

An operating layer, not only a work-product tool

Willett says Rogo is pitching an organizing layer for AI agents that covers governance, compliance, token optimization and visibility into a firm’s AI use. The stated goal is a top-to-bottom operating system for banks, expanding the company’s pitch from automated work products to oversight of AI use.

The planned Asia team will cover corporate and commercial banking, asset management and wealth management—not just mergers and sector coverage. That scope reflects Willett’s intention to sell beyond investment-banking workflows.

Customers establish a base; deployment remains the test

Nomura’s investment-banking division and Daiwa Securities are among Asian users of Rogo’s platform. Rogo says it has more than 350 clients globally, more than 50,000 bankers and investors using the platform, and users in more than 100 countries; those figures come from its website.

People familiar with the matter identified GIC as a client and said Barclays rolled out Rogo across its Asian offices. GIC, Barclays and Rogo declined to comment. Whether banks adopt Rogo’s wider governance and AI-agent layer across the businesses the new team will serve remains unresolved.