SGInnovate announced today that it has
appointed 17 co-investors under the Startup SG Equity scheme. (SGInnovate is a private limited company
wholly owned by the Singapore Government to support and develop the deep tech
startup ecosystem in Singapore.)
The Startup SG Equity schemewas created to
stimulate and accelerate private investment into innovative, Singapore-based
technology startups with intellectual property and global market potential.
Both SGInnovate and SPRING
Seeds Capital Pte. Ltd. (an investment arm of SPRING
Singapore) were appointed to manage the funds under this scheme.
The co-investors would collectively be identifying and
co-investing with SGInnovate in early-stage deep tech startups in areas
prioritised in Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 Plan or RIE2020, such as Artificial
Intelligence and Blockchain.
The total value for investments that would be made alongside
these co-investors could potentially reach up to S$80 million over the next
four years.
In addition to the injection of capital that will fuel the
startups’ development and expansion efforts, they are also expected to benefit
from the strategic and management guidance provided by SGInnovate and the
co-investors.
These co-investors have been appointed through a stringent
selection process that is based on, among other criteria, the management team’s
capabilities and adequacy of facilities and resources.
“Deep technology startups typically have a longer roadmap
for development and commercialisation, and this may discourage some private
sector VCs whose LPs expect shorter-term returns,” said Steve Leonard, Founding
CEO, SGInnovate. “These highly qualified VCs have committed to be active
investors in early-stage deep tech startups founded in Singapore, and we look
forward to working with all of them.”
The 17 co-investors (with additional details for some of
them) are:
- C31 Ventures (CapitaLand’s
corporate venture fund that invests in technology startups that complement
CapitaLand's real estate business and provide the Group with new strategic
capabilities) - Cocoon Capital (a focusing on early-stage, digital companies
across Southeast Asia and India) - Decacorn Partners (a cross-border venture funding initiative,
which aims to invest in game changing start-ups) - Dymon Asia Ventures (a Singapore-based venture
capital fund with focus on financial services) - Gobi Management (Gobi
manages nine funds, with investment focus on early stage, IT and digital media
companies in China and Southeast Asia) - Jungle
Ventures (seeks to help build regional consumer internet category leaders
in retail, financial services, travel & hospitality, healthcare and several
other sectors) - Mojo Partners
- Monk’s Hill Ventures (VC firm investing in post-seed stage
tech startups that seek to take advantage of the fast growing Southeast
Asian markets) - NSI Ventures (typically invests
at Round A or B stage, where revenue traction is building and capital is
required to drive rapid growth and its existing portfolio covers B2C and B2B
technologies; part of the Northstar Group, a Southeast Asia private equity
firm) - Pix Vine Capital (provides
early-stage venture capital to startups in Info-Tech, Med-Tech and FinTech) - Qualgro Partners (invests
at Series A and Series B, across
Southeast Asia, Australia & New Zealand, with primary focus on B2B) - Supply Chain Angels (the corporate
venture arm of YCH Group,
a leading integrated end-to-end supply chain management and solutions provider
in Asia-Pacific; co-invested
by National Research
Foundation (NRF) under the Early Stage Venture Funding Scheme III,
SCAngels invests in startups that are synergistic and complementary to YCH’s
supply chain and logistic business) - TNF Ventures (established
presence in ICT, social media, hardware, fintech and medical space and with
extensive network panning from ASEAN to China and India) - tryb Group (a
financial technology platform, which acquires, develops and operates
financial technology for institutions in trade finance, SME finance and
micro-credit, seeking to enable better access to global capital markets for
underserved consumers of credit in ASEAN) - Velocity
- Vickers Venture Partners (looks for
sustainable business models with competitive edges and considers platform plays
to be key to portfolio risk mitigation) - Wavemaker Partners (starts
with small investments in very early-stage companies, working with them over
12-18 months and gradually exposing more capital to the most promising ones)
SGInnovate recently announced
its ‘Deep Tech Nexus’ Strategy that represents its commitment to add
tangible value to the Singapore deep tech startup ecosystem in two key areas –
Human Capital and Investment Capital.
In the latter area, the goal is to make direct investments
into at least 20 Singapore-based deep tech startups during next year, as well
as to co-invest into deep tech startups alongside private-sector VCs (venture
capitalists) under Startup SG Equity. Three
technology areas were selected for focus during 2018: Artificial Intelligence,
Blockchain and MedTech.