Startupbootcamp has graduated the first cohort of its Sustainability Singapore accelerator, backing nine pre-seed startups working across food and agritech, alternative finance, and trade and logistics.
The cohort pitched to investors, corporate partners and government agencies at a Demo Day held at Temasek Shophouse in Singapore, following a 12-week programme run through SBC Sustainability Singapore, the accelerator’s dedicated investment vehicle.
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Startupbootcamp said the vehicle plans to invest in 60 startups over six cohorts. It did not disclose the amount invested in each company.
The programme is anchored around three sectors that sit close to Singapore’s economic vulnerabilities: food security, supply chains, and finance. The city-state imports more than 90 per cent of its food, runs one of the world’s busiest transshipment ports, and has spent years positioning itself as a regional financial centre. Those same dependencies are increasingly being reframed as investable markets as climate shocks, trade fragmentation and financial exclusion create demand for new infrastructure.
“Singapore’s ambition to lead on sustainability can’t be delivered by policy alone, it needs a pipeline of founders solving the hard problems in food security, clean trade and inclusive finance,” said Ricardo Costa, Head of Singapore at Startupbootcamp.
Singapore’s resilience thesis
The accelerator’s focus is closely aligned with Singapore’s policy agenda. Under the Singapore Green Plan 2030 and the Singapore Food Story, the government has pushed for lower-carbon growth, stronger domestic food capabilities and more resilient supply chains. Its “30 by 30” target aims to produce 30 per cent of the country’s nutritional needs locally by 2030.
The commercial question is whether early-stage startups can build venture-scale companies around those priorities.
Southeast Asia has no shortage of sustainability ambition, but funding has become more selective. After the broader venture correction, climate and sustainability startups increasingly need to show commercial pull rather than rely on policy momentum. A Bain, Temasek, GenZero and Standard Chartered report has estimated that Southeast Asia will need about US$1.5 trillion in cumulative green investment by 2030, but only a fraction of that capital has reached early-stage companies.
This gap has created room for accelerators, corporate venture arms, and specialist funds to position themselves between policy targets and investable startups. In the region, players such as Wavemaker Impact, Circulate Capital, Antler and Iterative have backed climate, resource efficiency, circular economy and supply-chain companies, though with different fund models and risk appetites.
Startupbootcamp’s bet is narrower: identify pre-seed companies that can use Singapore as a capital, customer and credibility base while selling into regional or global markets.
The nine companies
The inaugural cohort includes three food and agritech startups.
AgroNest Ventures uses AI, drones, and sensors to help precision farmers reduce input costs and improve yields. The company claims its platform can lift yields by up to 40 per cent, though such productivity gains typically depend on crop type, farm size and adoption conditions.
AlgaTrop is building a seaweed processing business focused on tropical supply chains, turning smallholder harvests into standardised biostimulants. Seaweed has become a focus area for climate and agriculture investors because of its potential use in fertilisers, animal feed, biomaterials and carbon-related applications, but the sector still faces constraints around quality control, logistics and farmer economics.
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Everlend Agritech operates a seed-credit and marketplace model for smallholder farmers in East Africa. The company says it has financed 800 farmers and helped triple yields while increasing incomes by 45 per cent.
The fintech and alternative finance track includes four companies.
Bheja.ai is automating mortgage refinancing for Australian homeowners, targeting the so-called loyalty tax paid by customers who remain on less competitive rates.
Pramaanit Technologies is developing tamper-proof digital credentials for universities, governments and employers, a market that overlaps with digital identity, education verification and workforce mobility.
Receitly converts digital receipts into post-purchase data for retailers and consumers.
Sendcoins is building stablecoin-based cross-border payment rails for migrant workers, students and small businesses.
The stablecoin angle is particularly relevant in Southeast Asia, where remittances, cross-border commerce and fragmented banking infrastructure continue to create openings for non-bank payment rails. At the same time, companies in this space face a more demanding regulatory environment. Singapore has moved to regulate stablecoins and digital payment token providers more tightly through the Monetary Authority of Singapore, while other regional markets have taken varied approaches to crypto-linked payments.
The trade and logistics track includes Genesys One and ShypV.
Genesys One is building digital passports for mineral supply chains, creating traceability from mine to market. This sits within a wider push for supply-chain transparency as manufacturers, banks and regulators demand better evidence on sourcing, carbon exposure and labour standards.
ShypV offers an AI-powered platform for small and mid-sized retailers, claiming efficiency gains of up to 26 per cent.
From accelerator to commercial traction
The 12-week programme began in Bangkok, where Startupbootcamp participated as the official Startup and Investor Park partner for Money20/20. Founders then moved into a residential week in Singapore that included a site visit to The GEAR by Kajima, an investor dinner, a fintech meet-up co-hosted with This Week in Fintech, and a corporate-startup collaboration session at SGInnovate.
Startupbootcamp said more than 150 mentors supported the cohort across venture de-risking, commercial acceleration and fundraising preparation.
The accelerator brings a global network into the programme. Since 2010, Startupbootcamp says it has accelerated around 1,700 startups across more than 20 countries. Its alumni have raised approximately US$2.9 billion in funding, based on the company’s stated figure of €2.7 billion.
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For Singapore, the test will be whether programmes such as this create companies that remain commercially tied to the region, rather than simply using the city-state as a fundraising stop. Many accelerators have struggled to convert demo-day visibility into sustained customer traction, especially in sectors where sales cycles depend on banks, governments, agribusinesses or logistics incumbents.
Still, the timing is not incidental. Southeast Asia’s food systems are exposed to climate volatility, its logistics networks are under pressure from trade shifts, and its financial systems continue to leave gaps for smaller businesses and cross-border workers. Startupbootcamp’s first cohort reflects where early-stage sustainability investing is moving: away from broad climate branding and towards specific infrastructure problems that can be priced, tested and scaled.
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