Many of us are familiar with the advantages of setting up a Singapore-based business, making it an attractive location for startup founders and entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia.

Aside from its benefits, the city-state has also made it relatively easy and quick to incorporate your business in the country—that’s if you are a local. Truth be told, the process isn’t as straightforward for foreign directors like myself.

Before diving deeper into the details, let’s quickly review why it’s worth incorporating in Singapore.

Strategic geographical location

Being situated right in the heart of Asia, Singapore’s strategic location gives businesses a steady platform for expansion in the region and increased connectivity to the rest of the world.

With extensive air connectivity as a result of a robust supply chain management system, Changi Airport serves more than 100 airlines with over 62.2 million passengers passing through the airport each year.

On top of being a centralised hub, this also gives founders and modern business owners easy access to an open market of four billion people in Asia.

Free trade agreements (FTAs)

To keep up with the dynamic global landscape, Singapore has one of the most extensive networks of free trade agreements. To date, it has implemented 22 bi-lateral and regional FTAs including the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which opens up a gateway to a plethora of suppliers and service providers around the globe.

This is a big deal especially for companies looking towards expansion in Southeast Asia as these trade agreements include treaties with all 10 members of ASEAN, giving you a better edge when entering the regional market.

Also Read: A sneak peek into 8 Singapore startups joining Big Idea Ventures’s New Protein programme

Ease of doing business

Unlike other nations around the world that require founders to be physically present to incorporate their business in the country, setting up your company in Singapore is incredibly swift and seamless. In fact, the incorporation process can be done completely online and in just a matter of minutes.

More and more business owners are becoming more reliant on digital solutions thanks to the rise of remote setups and the current state of international travel.

With a fully digitised procedure, foreign directors easily incorporate their companies in Singapore and get started with their operations in no time.

Politically stable environment

Compared to its counterparts in the region, Singapore has consistently ranked as one of the most politically stable countries in the region, making it a highly conducive environment for growth.

With the ongoing geopolitical strife between China and the US, many businesses are steering clear from these territories, leaving Singapore as the better and more sustainable alternative in the long run.

Access to funding and resources

Unlike big multinational corporations, startups rely heavily on external funding to kickstart the growth of their business. Fortunately, the Singapore government is incredibly supportive of startups from all sectors and has grant schemes and tax incentives in place to encourage foreign entrepreneurs to join Southeast Asia’s leading business hub.

Apart from government initiatives to provide funding for startups, there is a wide array of credible venture capital funds, incubators, and accelerators in Singapore designed for both local and international entrepreneurs.

Why it can be difficult for foreigners

Physical presence is required

Unlike local founders, foreign directors have to go the extra mile and make their way to Singapore as most incorporation packages require applicants to be physically present for a plethora of reasons.

This includes everything from paperwork, bank account opening, proving the legitimacy of the documents, as well as multiple director coordination.

Also Read: A beginner’s guide to incorporating tech startups in Singapore

While this requirement is justifiable to a certain extent, it is incredibly taxing on the director’s end, considering that additional arrangements have to be made from booking flight tickets to even finding the time to travel all the way to Singapore.

The process is backward 

Before getting your Singapore-based company up and running, there are various requirements that founders need to adhere to prior to carrying out business activities. In Singapore, at least one local resident must be a part of the company’s group of directors. For founders who have no existing network of connections in the country, this step can be rather challenging to fulfil.

Having a local registered business address is also another requirement that directors need to achieve before commencing operations.

Some might say that the process is backward as most systems across the globe prioritise getting companies registered first before taking care of the nitty-gritty details like forming your board of directors or having an office address.

Non-transparent information 

For some firms specialising in business registration for companies, there is a lack of transparency in the information provided to foreign directors upfront. Incorporation packages may come with hidden fees and additional requirements, leaving founders in the dark once it’s time to make a payment.

It is also likely that such companies are more focused and persistent on selling their services rather than building trust in their customers first, which may not sit well for most foreign directors.

Unfortunately, we weren’t exempted from these challenges. Having gone through these pains firsthand ourselves, we decided to solve the problem for other founders. Here’s how we did it.

How we solved the problem

Seeing fellow directors face the same problem, we took matters into our own hands and created a comprehensive solution that would streamline the incorporation process for Southeast Asia founders.

Earlier this year, we launched a solution stream, Aspire Kickstart, to equip startups with everything they need to launch their business in Singapore.

In just 10 minutes through a 100 per cent digital application procedure, foreign directors can incorporate their companies in the city-state and get a business bank account both at the same time.

Also Read: Tembusu Partners’s e-sports fund invests US$1M in Singapore’s RSG

Full Stack Data Founder Rishabh Srivastava’s experience included making multiple physical visits to various firms and banks, along with an endless amount of documents for verification. With Aspire’s incorporation process, all of that has been cut down to a tee.

With minimal paperwork and transparent pricing, founders can let our team of incorporation specialists take over and facilitate the entire registration process from submitting all application paperwork to ACRA, filing legal documents and financial reporting on behalf of new business applicants—all for an affordable price that won’t break the bank.

Being a startup ourselves, we understand how important it is to generate savings and create inexpensive solutions for fellow entrepreneurs.

As much as we would have liked to have a seamless incorporation process during our time, we are glad to have created and extended this service to aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners in Southeast Asia to give them a head start in their entrepreneurial journey in the city-state.

Since our incorporation, Aspire has reaped significant benefits and seen exponential growth in our business, and hope that fellow founders can enjoy a piece of the pie that Singapore has to offer as well.

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Image Credit: Aspire

This article was first published on April 21, 2021

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If you’re ready for PR, finding the right Public Relations agency demands a bit of strategic scrutiny.  I’ve been on both sides of the fence — picking PR firms in my in-house roles and running my own PR agency for 10 years.

Here are my insights into the nuanced world of selecting a PR agency. In my candid insight, I share essential considerations, from getting clear on PR objectives, budgets and industry expertise to the delicate art of cultivating long-term professional partnerships.

I ran my own PR agency for 10 years, V&VPR, which is a question I still get asked often. Here is my insider scoop on what everyone needs to know before hiring an agency– the good, the bad, and everything you need to keep an eye out for when hiring a PR agency:

What you need PR for

Determine what you really need PR for. Is it a new product launch, building up brand awareness, handling your reputation, or maybe some crisis comms management? This will guide you to the right agency — some only do Crisis Comms, for instance.

But, a heads-up: if your product or service isn’t up to scratch — substandard products/bad customer experience/your e-commerce is slow. No amount of PR magic can save you in the long run. I’ve seen it happen. Ensure you have a quality offering to begin with. Bad news travels fast, especially thanks to social media, and you want to aim for a high repeat business ratio (the cheapest form of customer acquisition).

What’s your budget

Decent agencies these days won’t bat an eye at anything less than SG$6K (US$4,462) per month for at least three months. Folks that went for cheaper options came running back when the said cheaper guys didn’t perform.

Also Read: Barbie-fy your business with the power of PR

Lesson learned: you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. If you can’t afford an agency yet, there’s lots of DIY help out there to do it yourself, including what I’ve been doing with my Media Insiders Summits and HYOPR teaching PR cohorts. Carve out some time to do a little DIY and, in the background, save to get a good agency.

Industry experts rule

Pick an agency that knows your industry like the back of their hand. If you’re in travel, go for a crew that’s all about lifestyle or travel PR. It doesn’t always have to be super niche, though; sometimes, expertise from slightly different yet complementary fields like wellness, food, or hotels can work well as opportunities for partnerships. They should know your market, your rivals, and the latest trends so they can guide you on standing out in the crowd.

Creativity and flexibility

Your agency needs to be creative and flexible in today’s wild and ever-changing world. They’ve got to be able to cut through the noise with innovative strategies and roll with the punches when things get crazy — think economic shifts, political drama, or, hello, a global pandemic. Check out their testimonials and case studies, and have a chat with their current/past clients to see if they’ve got that creative spark and adaptability.

Who’s in their black book?

Ask them about which journalists they rub shoulders with — that’s part of what you’re paying for. A good agency should have a little black book of media contacts, and they’ve got to be buddies with the right people. Trust me; you want your brand in the hands of a trusted agency, not just any Joe Bloggs agency with a ‘Spray and Pray’ approach.

Set expectations and KPIs

Lay it all out on the table — what you expect and what they can realistically do. Work together to agree on some sensible KPIs. Forget about outdated metrics like AVE. Focus on SMART goals and objectives that actually matter.

Respect the partnership

Treat your agency like a partner, not just a service provider. Let them do their thing, respect their boundaries, and don’t throw curveballs for unrealistic, unnecessary deadlines. Remember, they’re juggling other clients too. Treat them right, and they’ll bend over backwards when you need it.

Also Read: How startups should approach public relations

Understand the process

PR can actually be pretty fun and interesting! Ask the questions and get to understand the process, make an effort to understand the agency, and let them get to know you. The more you understand how the media world works and what’s relevant, the better you can work together in creating effective campaigns. You’ll soon realise that getting on the front page of a national newspaper doesn’t happen overnight.

Account Management 101

Before you seal the deal, make sure you know who’ll be managing your account. No one wants to be handed off to an intern who’s still figuring things out. Check that the designated person knows their stuff. You can also work your (fair) KPIs into the contract with review dates.

Are they nice people?

Do they work ethically and treat their team well? Do they align themselves with ethical brands and people? There’s much to be said about kind, happy PR teams treating each other and their clients with care. You also don’t want to be associated with an agency representing brands that are unethical for obvious reasons. Ask yourself, can I actually work with these people?

Take your time in the process — shortlist three and have the conversations. If you can visit them in person, even better. Your brand’s reputation is at stake at the end of the day, and you can’t get back the time, money and potential damage working with the wrong PR Partner.

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Unifier Ventures, a VC fund leading the way in cross-regional connections between Europe and Southeast Asia (SEA), recently secured EUR 6.25 million (US$6.7 million) to make the first close of its first fund.

Unifier Ventures strategically targets three key markets: Europe, SEA, and the US, while its distinct value proposition centres on bridging the gap between Europe and SEA by facilitating the exchange of ideas, talent, and capital. After a year of operating in stealth mode, it has already invested in seven companies.

In an interview, its Managing Partner, Miguel Encarnacion, provides insights into the firm’s vision, strategies, and pivotal role in shaping the future of cross-regional collaboration and innovation.

Edited excerpts:

How does Unifier Ventures determine the allocation of funds across Europe, SEA, and the US? Can you elaborate on the criteria and considerations in selecting companies for investment in these regions?

As a German-domiciled fund, we have hard-coded a 70 per cent allocation for Europe. The remaining 30 per cent can be invested in the US or SEA. We have different strategies across the three geographies we cover.

• In Europe, we look for cross-cultural, cross-functional founding teams that can build a global product and company culture to be in a position to scale internationally much earlier than homogeneous founding teams.
• In SEA, we look for repeat founders with a track record of entrepreneurial success, if not yet startup success.
• In the US, we look for underrepresented founders with unique insights into large, unaddressed markets.

Of course, finding all those characteristics in one team from any market would be amazing!

Why did Unifier Ventures choose to operate in stealth for the past 12 months? What advantages did this approach offer in the competitive VC landscape?

Many funds need to be announced immediately as part of their fundraising efforts. As a micro fund with an anchor investor in place and the first close amount secured, we just decided to jump right in and start investing before we work on all our brand materials. So, honestly, it was a matter of bandwidth as a small team.

How did Unifier Ventures establish partnerships with family offices behind prominent entities like the Bank of Makati and Seaoil Philippines? Can you shed light on the LP selection process and how these partnerships contribute to the firm’s strategic goals?

I used to manage the family office behind Seaoil Philippines, and it is now our anchor investor. During the five years of managing the family office, I built strong relationships with other family offices in the Philippines and a few more across the region.

Ultimately, we look for family offices with a digitalisation mandate across their core businesses so they can be the pilot customers for the startups we invest in, especially European startups looking to enter SEA.

What challenges and opportunities does Unifier Ventures foresee in bridging the gap between Europe and SEA in terms of capital flow and the transfer of ideas and talent?

The startup ecosystem in SEA is still relatively young, with very few exited founders having funnelled money and expertise back into the ecosystem. This is in stark contrast to the US and, to an extent, Europe, which already has a pool of exited founders setting up VC funds and venture builders to support the next wave of founders.

We also lack senior and middle management employees from startups that have gone through hyper-scale going on to join younger startups and build their own companies. That’s why it’s important for SEA founders to be plugged into other startup hubs globally to find strategic investors and experienced scale-up talent from other markets.

We focus on bridging Europe and SEA because we believe the scaling playbook is similar for these two regions, with smaller neighbouring countries having different languages, cultural nuances, and regulations.

From day one, the mindset for founders in the EU and SEA must be to ‘win locally but think globally’, which might not be necessary for founders building in mega markets like the US, China, and India. That is both a challenge and an opportunity for founders willing to navigate the complexity.

How does Unifier Ventures perceive the startup ecosystem in Europe compared to Southeast Asia? Are there specific industries or sectors within these regions that the fund finds particularly promising

Being a young startup ecosystem, many proven winners are still coming from e-commerce, fintech, and logistics tech. This is the usual starting point since people want to buy online, need to pay for these items and expect to have them delivered.

We see an opportunity to support these scale-ups with workplace technology solutions suitable for young, tech-savvy populations. We like the sector because it has broad applications across industries and allows us to recommend these solutions to our entire network, including the corporations behind our LPs and portfolio companies. Europe is particularly strong in building B2B software products.

Despite the initial focus on workplace technology with four of the first eight portfolio companies in that sector, we view ourselves as a generalist fund and already have portfolio companies in adtech, Web3, ESG, and healthtech. We’re driven more by the geographic relevance to SEA, whether the founders know it themselves or not. So, there is also a lot of interest in proptech and logistics tech because of the archipelagos and smart cities being built across our home region.

What are Unifier Ventures’s expansion plans in Southeast Asia to strengthen its connections between Europe and the region further?

As a micro fund with a small team, a big part of our strategy is to be involved with the right networks. For the past six years, we have been very involved with AsiaBerlin, which organises an annual tech conference boasting one of the largest attendances of Asian startups and investors in mainland Europe.

In 2024, one of our new projects is to help with the relaunch of Skytrain, a member-driven association of emerging fund managers across Europe. We are organising a delegation trip together with these two groups to come to SEA in Q3.

How does Unifier Ventures measure the success of its investments beyond financial returns? Can you provide examples of how the fund has contributed to the growth and success of portfolio companies in SEA?

One of our key success metrics is to build customer relationships between our portfolio companies and the operating companies of our LPs. A strategic investment is usually an intermediate step to facilitate this.

For our portfolio company Otis, we helped them raise 5x more capital than our initial investment amount directly from other family offices in the Philippines. This ultimately led to them securing a contract from a large insurance company affiliated with one of the families.

We also like to support with hires, especially for our European portfolio. For our German portfolio company Blockbrain, we helped them build a small team of Web3 researchers in the Philippines.

For startups looking to attract investment from Unifier Ventures, what advice would you offer in terms of aligning with the fund’s mission and demonstrating value in the Southeast Asian market?

In SEA, we look for founders with previous insights and track records across multiple countries. We want to support startups with clear use cases across the region and not just solve country-specific problems. That allows us to leverage our network of regional family offices and even bring in potential co-investors from Europe.

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Green COP, a sustainable fuel solutions startup based in Singapore, has concluded its angel investment round with a curated group of investors, including Ken Energy.

The funding size has not been disclosed.

The company will use funds to establish a sustainable biofuels pilot plant with a one-tonne daily production capacity. A portion of the capital will be used to bolster market outreach to nurture a sustainable economy within the maritime and transportation sectors.

Also Read: FlyORO wants to decarbonise aviation with its last-mile sustainable fuel blending tech

“This funding enables us to launch a pilot biofuels plant, a transformative milestone in our startup journey,” said Hanson Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of Green COP.

The deeptech startup has also appointed maritime veteran Teo Teng Seng as Chairman.

Green COP produces sustainable biofuels derived from biowaste, strategically focusing on fostering a circular economy in the maritime and transportation sectors. Its patented pre-treatment and fermentation technology yields more efficient drop-in fuels that seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructure, facilitating a smooth transition to sustainable energy solutions.

Unlike traditional fuels, Green COP’s colourless alcohol-based biofuels offer a cleaner, eco-conscious energy alternative. Its biofuels have an extended shelf life of more than 24 months, contributing to a 30 per cent reduction in Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions.

Also Read: ‘Founders in SEA should connect with global startup hubs’: Miguel Encarnacion of Unifier Ventures

According to the company, it has formed a strategic collaboration with a leading global integrated palm oil player to transform biowaste into sustainable biofuels.

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Mober, an electric vehicle (EV) logistics startup in the Philippines, has received US$2 million in a seed financing round led by local family business RT Heptagon Holdings.

The company is using the funds to accelerate the integration of electric vehicles (EVs) into its fleet. Mober has already expanded its EV fleet to 60 vehicles.

Established in July 2015, Mober aims to drive the transition to green deliveries in the Philippines. The firm has developed a Transport Management System (TMS) to optimise delivery efficiency and track the CO2 savings achieved through EVs.

Also Read: Driving change: Mober’s journey towards sustainable green delivery

The company is working with several brands, such as Kuehne + Nagel, Nestle, and Maersk, to electrify their logistics operations. Notable among them is the collaboration with IKEA Philippines, aiming to electrify 100 per cent of its home delivery services by 2025. Mober has also inaugurated a flagship EV charging station in Pasay City to support its fleet, particularly those serving IKEA Philippines.

Mober will also electrify same-day delivery services for SM Appliance Center.

The company anticipates an investment round before the end of Q1 2024. This upcoming financial infusion will further accelerate Mober’s green logistics initiatives.

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