INVESTMENTS by the Singapore government in venture programmes and cross-border alliances could break down long-standing hurdles to collaboration between corporates and startups.
Industry players told The Business Times (BT) that while efforts have been made to help reinvent businesses and match them to startups and tech firms, the lack of a large-scale and structured initiative has created a bottleneck for innovation.
To support businesses in developing creative ideas, a new government-led Corporate Venture Launchpad will be piloted this year to provide co-funding for corporates to build new ventures.
This will be done through prequalified venture studios, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat said on Tuesday.
Enhancements will also be made to the existing Open Innovation Platform, which matches problems faced by companies and public agencies with solution providers, he said.
The search and matching of tech solutions to challenges will be automated, while proof-of-concept testing will be sped up through a virtual sandbox and testing environment.
Such initiatives could go some way in helping the many undiscovered startups looking for industry connections, said John Cheng, director of foodtech and agritech incubator Innovate 360.
"When a lot of these companies start out, they cold-call and try to reach the towkay (boss) but end up reaching a salesperson, so it's not very fruitful," he said.
While startups need a channel to connect to corporates, established businesses also need a structured way to innovate, said Mr Cheng, who began working with foodtech startups while revamping his family's local sugar manufacturing business Cheng Yew Heng.
He believes that an ecosystem of corporate venture studios in Singapore could help "an entire community of forward-looking corporates to get into a venture-building mindset".
That said, the programme should serve the needs of businesses across the entire spectrum.
Derrick Chiang, chief executive of corporate innovation platform Padang & Co, told BT: "The corporate venture studios are good for the big end of town - multinational corporations with big budgets. There needs to be different mechanisms for every strata of the business community, so those who don't have the resources (such as people and budgets) can start small - experiment, test, learn and progress."
The government is also pouring more support into cross-border partnerships by expanding the Global Innovation Alliance from 15 to over 25 cities worldwide, over the next five years.
The initiative, which links Singapore up with major innovation hubs, will be enhanced through the inclusion of the Co-Innovation Programme that supports up to 70 per cent of qualifying costs for cross-border innovation and partnership projects.
Silvanus Lee, the co-founder of Temasek-backed startup BasisAI, said Singapore's positioning as a global tech hub comes at a critical inflection point, where global talent is increasingly moving to the city-state to set up funds and startups.
"There is strong conviction in the size of the regional markets, the availability of high-grade technical talent, and the strong ecosystem supported by government initiatives to foster innovation," he said.
But corporate-startup innovation is a long-term game and should be treated as such, said Lim Ee Ling, a regional director for Asia-Pacific at 500 Startups who oversees partnerships.
She pointed out that an overemphasis on quick, tangible results and statistics would create the false impression that these efforts are not effective. This can cause funds to be pulled and strategic plans to be shelved too early.
Shaun Hon, a director at Rainmaking, a corporate innovation studio that has worked with over a hundred Fortune 500 organisations, said Singapore's tech ecosystem will benefit from having skilled intermediaries.
"A truly collaborative investment effort needs an intermediary who understands how to balance two priorities in a structured innovation process," he said.
For instance, they must be able to support startups in navigating the interests of investors, corporates and government partners.
To further help businesses that are innovating, the government is developing the Singapore Intellectual Property Strategy 2030. This will involve equipping businesses with the tools to value their intellectual property and intangible assets, and training skilled professionals in these fields.
Chia Hock Lai, president of the Singapore FinTech Association, said he hopes that fast-track programmes for patent filings will be expanded to new deep tech areas such as 5G and trust technologies.
"This would attract more of such deep-tech firms to Singapore and catalyse the city-state as a hub that is generating value-added jobs in the process," he said.
KEY POINTS
- New initiative to help businesses develop ideas through venture studios.
- Solutions-matching, cross-border alliance programmes to be enhanced.
- Intellectual property regime to be strengthened.
© 2021 Singapore Press Holdings
This article was written by Claudia Chong from The Singapore Business Times and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.
