Flashback to Singapore more than 30 years ago, establishments such as incubator programmes are unheard of. Anyone who was an individual or part of a team with a conceivable idea had to embark on their entrepreneurial journey the hard way.

The 1990s rolled in, cue the comment from the late founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew who then said, when Singapore’s economic growth slowed down, “In this new phase, it is people with the imagination, drive, willingness to think big and take risks to bring their ideas into the commercial marketplace, who will make the economy grow, make themselves rich, and provide jobs for our people.”

From the 1990s, Singapore, on a mission to cultivate a vibrant and friendly startup ecosystem, started to accelerate the evolution of more founders in Singapore by building networks spanning across investments, regional market access, intellectual property protection, and research and development.

With strong support from the Singapore government, entrepreneurship programmes sprung from local universities, and today, university incubators such as the Business Innovations Generator (BIG), the flagship programme of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Singapore Management University, are playing a key role in nurturing changemakers into future trendsetters and leaders.

Business Innovations Generator incubation programme

Started in 2009 by the Singapore Management University Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SMU IIE), BIG is an intensive four-month, equity-free programme offering early-stage startups and student founders the opportunity to validate their business plans, refine their products and prep for seed investments.

Also Read: NGC Ventures backs blockchain gaming incubator and launchpad Seedify

Founders get to tap into a plethora of support networks, knowledge, and resources, including grant opportunities, world-class mentors and advisors, masterclasses, corporate perks, and access to a conducive workspace located in the heart of SMU in downtown Singapore.

Being founder-centric, BIG supports coachable individuals from within and outside of SMU who are interested in entrepreneurship and is committed to developing the SMU and overall Singapore’s start-up ecosystem. Designed to nurture entrepreneurs through knowledge transfer and a strong support infrastructure, BIG offers the following:

Financial support: Application for government grants and co-funding opportunities such as the IIE Acceleration Grant and BIG Startup Support Grant
Strong knowledge and support network: Strategic mentoring by IIE’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence and a pool of world-class industry experts who are successful entrepreneurs, VCs, angels, corporate and government agencies
Community events: Office Hours, where startups can consult and seek advice from invited experts, Founders’ Updates, which provides startups with the opportunity to hone their pitching skills and exchange knowledge with peer founders, and Sharing Sessions, where successful entrepreneurs recount their journey and inspire current and aspiring founders
Masterclasses: Curriculum and pedagogy designed to empower the founders with knowledge on Founder Equity, Fundraising, Founders Ethics, and Ready for Market
Co-working space: Access to The Greenhouse, a 700sqm workspace located in SMU, in the heart of downtown Singapore
Corporate perks: Credits from corporate partners to offset the bills when the start-ups engage the services of participating corporates, and more

As a testimony of the BIG programme’s success and reputation, the August 2022 cohort boasts 37 startups from the United Kingdom to India, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. The BIG programme’s industry-agnostic belief is also personified through the diverse nature of the latest cohort – from community and networking, healthtech, edutech, F&B, and blockchain, with sustainability as the dominating theme it makes up more than 18 per cent of the contingent.

Also Read: Entrepreneur First to discontinue Singapore programme; to focus on Europe, N America, India

Since the programme’s inception, close to 400 early-stage start-ups have been successfully incubated and collectively raised approximately S$391 million worth of funding, affirming the success that the BIG programme brings to aspiring entrepreneurs.

“The support rendered by the mentors from the BIG programme has proved invaluable in helping me take my start-up to the global stage. BIG has opened doors to new investors, paved the way for collaborative success, and fostered a wholly unique community spirit amongst its members,” says Fengru Lin, Founder and CEO of TurtleTree, a biotech company dedicated to producing a new generation of nutrition. The company, a biotech start-up producing cell-based milk and milk products, raised US$30 million in a Series A round in November 2021 to scale up its expansion, research and production plans. TurtleTree has now raised about US$40 million to date.

Another incubated startup, Workstream, the mobile-first hiring and onboarding platform for the deskless workforce, recently raised an additional US$60 million for their Series B round, bringing the total Series B financing to US$108 million.

After exiting the BIG programme in 2019, the startup maintained strong ties with SMU IIE, becoming a global partner for the Global Innovation Immersion, an overseas summer internship programme that SMU IIE runs, recruiting young talents from Singapore Management University as interns to provide them with first-hand experience in the bustling start-up world and even, the opportunity to join the company after the internship.

“We received so much assistance from BIG, from connecting to a community of like-minded people and to mentors who could help us plug specific gaps in knowledge and know-how. Workstream is fortunate to have experienced several breakthroughs, and no doubt BIG has been one of the catalysts that got us to where we are today,” says Desmond Lim, Co-Founder and CEO of Workstream.

The call for applications for BIG’s first intake for 2023 is open until 2 Dec 2023. Interested parties may apply here.

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