EDB commits another S$32 million to drive corporate venturing, partnerships with startups

The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) is injecting S$32 million more over the next two years to expand its corporate venture programme.

Corporate Venture Launchpad (CVL) 3.0 will also make it easier for Singapore-based companies to form partnerships with startups.

This third tranche of funds is 60 per cent higher than the S$20 million it committed to the second edition of its CVL programme in 2022. The initiative was launched in May 2021 with S$10 million in pilot funding.

Through the programme, EDB’s New Ventures team will work — together with nine appointed partners — with selected companies to innovate in growth areas.

These partners comprise both venture studio partners and open innovation partners; they will guide companies to create ventures as well as to collaborate with startups.

Since the launch, EDB has supported 24 companies in launching 14 new ventures, with more in the pipeline.

One of the participants in CVL 2.0 was French energy group Engie’s venture-building arm Engie Factory. The programme has helped incubate two of its ventures — one on battery management software, and the other, on biomass-to-energy applications.

In the third edition, EDB wants to expand its support to help foster partnerships between startups and established large corporates.

Jacqueline Poh, managing director of EDB, said at the launch of CVL 3.0 on Thursday (29 August): “What we heard from companies was that there were misaligned expectations between the companies and startups.”

Internal processes were not startup-friendly, it was difficult to match startups to the problems the companies were dealing with, and there was no clear line of sight towards the outcomes with the most impact for large companies, she said.
 

To address these issues, Poh said CVL 3.0 will feature a capability-building programme for companies, so they can establish best practices for working with startups and to increase their access to high-quality startup partners.

EDB will co-fund up to half the costs of manpower and professional services, with additional grant support for selected companies to run pilots with their startup partners.

At a fireside chat following the launch, industry players said working with startups enables them to tap into their innovative ideas, especially in areas that corporates are unfamiliar with.

Rohit Girdhar, vice-president of strategy and mergers and acquisitions at Infineon Technologies, said his company set up a co-innovation programme in 2018 with this objective in mind. Startups in the semiconductor industry, he said, were innovative at the “application level” — such as in drones, share bikes, and payment systems.

Increasingly, a lot of innovation is happening at the system level, in terms of software, and startups are really leveraging the power of software to build on top of hardware,” he said.

However, the company spent nearly a year studying other incubators, formulating a programme and networking to identify the right startups to work with, he said.

“If we had a structured programme at that time, I think it would have been such a great help — a platform for networking, tips and guidance, the dos and don’ts, and a lot of help,” he said.

Beyond supporting a wider range of corporate innovation needs, EDB expects startups to “benefit greatly” from the collaboration and support from multinational corporations, Poh said.

Startups will gain access to corporate demand, which would hopefully enable them to scale their businesses from Singapore, she said.

“As the global economy continues to face uncertainty, we find that companies are increasingly confronted with the innovation paradox,” she said. They need “disruptive corporate innovation”, yet resources to fuel innovation are often limited.

EDB’s mission for the CVL remains clear, she said. “We are focused on helping companies stay competitive and grow in new areas by unlocking the full potential of corporate venturing, while nurturing a culture of continuous innovation from Singapore.”
 

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