On September 15, 2026, the new sovanta AppHaus Newtown Square opened its doors for American customers.
The grand opening event was scheduled along the local SAP Connect Day events for AI & Data Leaders, so guests from the regional business and technology community were welcomed at the new creative space. Near SAP’s Newtown Square campus, the factory-style sovanta AppHaus now invites SAP customers to hands-on co-innovation work. Experts from sovanta help teams explore and design use cases based on the latest AI-infused technologies provided by the Autonomous Enterprise. As the company puts it, “Others talk about agents. We build them.”
Speakers with three different perspectives
The grand opening event started with a welcoming note given by Claus Heinrich, founder and CEO of sovanta; Christian Heinrich, president of sovanta America; and David Robinson, president, SAP North America and Americas Customer Success Functions. They shared their SAP and partner perspectives and fully agreed that the most important insights came from their joint customers. So, they offered the stage to two long-standing sovanta customers, Elanco Animal Health and Endress+Hauser. Both shared first-hand experiences of their innovation work and journey—and what AI-powered business transformation looks like in their concrete business contexts.
“What we value most about sovanta is how they collaborate with us: honest, well-organized, and always a step ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape,” Sunil Guna, senior director, ERP lead at Elanco Animal Health, said. “Over the past year, they have become a true trusted advisor, and the sovanta AppHaus Newtown Square gives us the place to keep turning ideas into real impact with SAP.”
“The Autonomous Enterprise is not built in a boardroom—it is co-created, use case by use case, in spaces exactly like this one. Having sovanta bring that capability directly to North American customers, right here in Newtown Square, is a genuine milestone for SAP and for the customers we build the future with together,” SAP’s Robinson said.
Looking back – and ahead
Claus Henrich, who is a former board member of SAP AG, looked back on the years of building and growing sovanta as a company: “Since founding sovanta in Germany in 2009, our approach has been to work closely with our customers on real business challenges and turn them into meaningful innovation. That approach has paid off, and bringing it to the U.S. with our sovanta AppHaus Newtown Square is an important next step. I’m proud of what we’ve built and grateful for the trust of SAP and our customers.”
Global innovation support, going broader and deeper
The new location is designed in a creative factory style, reminiscent of the hands-on innovation work that the sovanta team performs with all its customers. Like all other SAP AppHaus Network members, its co-innovation work follows the human-centered approach to innovation.
Thomas Biedermann, global head of SAP AppHaus Network, commended the partner team for opening this new location not far from Philadelphia: ”My heartfelt congratulations to the sovanta team for being the second partner of our global network community to open a second AppHaus location in the U.S. It shows that the innovation approach we share is not only broadly adopted across the globe but also intensified by our partners, going broader and deeper, so to say. We wish you and your customers lots of success!”
About SAP AppHaus Network
The SAP AppHaus Network is a global community of like-minded teams, both from SAP and selected partners. The joint mission: bring human-centered innovation to life for SAP customers. Together, they believe that sustainable innovation is based on five key enablers: people, process, place, leadership, and technology.
All members are empowered early on with the latest methods, tools, and knowledge, allowing them to act as agile frontrunners and co-innovation experts. They support customers around the world regardless of their digital maturity, guiding them to explore new use cases and unlock tangible business value with the help of the latest technologies offered by the Autonomous Enterprise. Concrete guidance can be found in the specialized innovation toolkit for AI.
As one of the first, sovanta joined the SAP AppHaus Network in November 2019.
Working closer with the American SAP ecosystem
Christian Heinrich explained the advantage as follows: “Establishing the sovanta AppHaus Newtown Square strengthens our presence at the heart of the U.S.-American SAP ecosystem and creates new opportunities to collaborate even more closely with SAP and our customers in the U.S. As part of the SAP AppHaus Network, we can combine proven human-centered innovation approaches with sovanta’s AI and SAP expertise to move from ideas to tangible business outcomes faster. Our SAP AppHaus location is our sovanta Innovation Factory brought to life, where we turn innovation from one-off projects into a scalable, repeatable approach.”
Rolling up our sleeves
“This isn’t just a new location,” Sven Arndt, chief technology officer, sovanta America, said. “It’s a place built around our customers and their challenges. We want to sit down together, understand where AI can create real value, and turn the most promising use cases into solutions that work in practice. I’m excited to welcome our first customers to Newtown Square, roll up our sleeves, and build what’s next together.”
For more information, the new sovanta AppHaus Newtown Square can be found at 3407 West Chester Pike, Newtown Square, PA 19073, United States of America.
Imke Vierjahn is communications lead for SAP AppHaus Network.
