Singapore was one of the first countries hit by the coronavirus, COVID-19. The city state’s early response, which included cash incentives to work from home, chatbots and a national Whatsapp channel to educate and inform citizens, has earned praise from the World Health Organization and in scientific research.
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On 18 February 2020, the Singapore government announced the budget allocation for the year. One of the highlights of the budget was the S$300 million (US$215 million) additional funds set aside to support startups in the Deep Tech sector. The government noted the larger investment and longer gestation period required by Deep Tech investments as the reason why the sector was given special attention in this budget.
Following the media statement disseminated, Deal Street Asia published an article on Founding CEO Steve Leonard’s impending departure from SGInnovate in May. Closely following key points from the statement, the article added that SGInnovate had declined to comment if Steve will maintain an advisory role upon departure and said his next role will be announced “in due course.” The story also highlighted Steve’s journey with SGInnovate since its launch in 2016 and shared that SGInnovate has since built and invested over $28.8 million (S$40 million) in more than 60 deep tech startups and created a community of over 33,000 people. Steve’s quote from the statement was included in its entirety.
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The Straits Times Online published an article on President Halimah Yacob’s five-day state visit to Germany which focused on education and the workforce, where she highlighted that Singapore can learn from Germany’s education system. Under Germany’s dual education system, companies and education institutions work together to teach students over three years. Madam Halimah also hailed the European Union-Singapore Free Trade Agreement as an important milestone and expressed her hopes that the EU-Singapore Investment Protection and Partnership Cooperation Agreement would be ratified soon, adding that there is scope for more collaboration in the areas of research, innovation and technology, with her visit featuring a number of tie-ups between German partners and Singaporean organisations such as the EDB, Enterprise Singapore and SGInnovate.
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Yahoo! Finance published a press release from Experian which announced that the inaugural Asia Pacific edition of its Vision Conference would be coming to Singapore in 2020. Experian’s Vision conference in North America has helped to connect business leaders to innovative ideas and solutions which help them target new markets, grow customer bases and reduce fraud. Vision 2020 APAC will shine a spotlight on major shifts which are reshaping the region and the significant growth opportunity that lies with the application of data assets today, to enable the provision of better services. The speaker line-up features some 50 industry experts and leaders including Steve Leonard, founding CEO of SGInnovate.
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MoneyFM 89.3 featured an interview with Pang Heng Soon, Head of Venture Building, SGInnovate, and Mriganka Pattnaik, Co-Founder and CEO, Merkle Science, where they discussed the new investment made into Merkle Science under the Startup SG Equity Scheme.
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