Edwin Chow, Assistant CEO, Enterprise SG
Meet the Govt is a new series by e27 that focus on how government agencies in Southeast Asian countries work together with startups and other industry players to build a healthier and stronger ecosystem.
In an interview with e27, Edwin Chow, Assistant CEO, Innovation & Enterprise at Enterprise Singapore, reveals that there are two-and-a-half challenges faced by the startup ecosystem in the country.
The first challenge would be talent acquisition. Startups in the country are in need of a steady supply of global talents, from programmers to marketers to regulatory experts.
“These are the key individuals who can help startups grow from zero to one hundred. This is in short supply in Singapore and we are doing our best to help,” he says.
This is followed by the fact that Singapore is such a small market that startups need to figure out an international expansion strategy since Day One.
Last but not least, startups in Singapore, particularly those working in the deep tech sector, are struggling to raise funds. Unlike startups in the e-commerce sectors, according to Chow, deep tech startups require more time to generate revenue or gain traction.
“VCs who are putting money into these deep tech startups must be very patient, and understand enough of the science behind the business, to accept that it will be a while until they start seeing any difference,” he explains.
But Chow dubbed this as “half a challenge” as the government has already taken steps to deal with this matter. Earlier this year, with the announcement of Budget 2020, the government sets aside S$300 million (US$215 million) additional funds to support startups in the deep tech sector.
“We hope this extra fund will help to grow VCs who are interested in the deep tech sector and crowd in new VCs from around the world to take a look at investing in the sector in Singapore,” he stresses.
Beyond home
To tackle these challenges, Chow reveals the agency’s main focus this year, which starts with a “deep dive” into the specific talent-related needs of startups.
“We want to match the startups to the appropriate talent pools in Singapore and around the world. It’s about how we put in place programmes and intervention to make it easier for entrepreneurs to come to Singapore, for startups that are growing, to find the right kind of talent to scale more quickly,” he elaborates.
Chow added that the agency is mindful that this will not happen overnight.
To tackle the challenge of helping startup expand to a new market, Chow speaks of an initiative to help startups scale up more quickly in relevant markets. Called Global Innovation Alliance, the programme is a network of partners in 13 cities across 1o countries that aim to help Singapore startups scale into their markets. It also aims to identify local startups from those markets that want to scale into Southeast Asia through Singapore.
The 13 cities participating in the programme include Bangkok, Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai, Berlin and Munich in Germany; HCMC in Vietnam, Jakarta in Indonesia; Paris in France; Tokyo in Japan; San Francisco in the US; Bangalore in India; and London in the UK.
“While the programme has to be pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic, we are quite confident that once it dies down, a lot of these platforms will be utilised by our startups,” Chow stresses.
Collaboration matters
As a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Singapore, Enterprise Singapore was formed to support Singapore small and medium enterprise (SME) development, upgrade capabilities, innovate, transform, and internationalise.
Within the past years, Chow notes that there have been notable milestones in the Singapore startup ecosystem.
First of all, while e-commerce and the “traditional” mobile app platforms continue to dominate the market, the rise of deep tech in the recent years had led to the government paying more attention to the sector.
“We are seeing more ventures coming out of universities and research institutions. They are even coming into Singapore from abroad. For example, five years ago, you could probably count the number of medtech startups with two hands and two feet. Today the number that we have is at least close to 300,” Chow says.
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“They also come from countries such as UK, India, China, coming into Singapore to set up their HQ and making use of the labs that we have here,” he continues.
This is being followed by the rise of foreign VCs and accelerators or incubators in Singapore. Lastly, there is also a greater appetite among corporations to work with startups.
In terms of collaborating with startups, openness is a theme that keeps on showing up recently, even among government institutions.
“The point of view that regulators are the enemy of innovation has started to change. In some areas, it has changed quite dramatically in Singapore. For example, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is well-known for being very protective of the rules. But two years ago, they decide to use the regulatory power that they have as a spur to innovation,” Chow says.
“I’m quite optimistic that this will be the way of the future,” he closes.
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Image Credit: Enterprise Singapore
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