- Early-stage Sensors and Electronics and Decarbonisation startups captured the lion’s share of investments in the Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainability spaces, while Agrifood incorporations declined sharply due to ongoing scaling challenges
- Cybersecurity startups spotlighted in new dedicated report highlighting insights on incorporations, fundraising activity and investment trends
9 September 2025, Singapore – Singapore’s early-stage emerging tech startups saw an increase in deal volume in 2024, despite a slight dip in overall funding. The ecosystem witnessed notable growth in key areas, particularly Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainability, which benefited from strong global demand for computing hardware innovation and decarbonisation solutions.
These findings are part of SGInnovate’s Singapore Early-Stage Emerging Tech Startups 2024 landscape report, which examines year-on-year developments in Singapore’s early-stage emerging tech startup ecosystem. In addition to monitoring movements across four key verticals, namely Advanced Manufacturing, Agrifood, Sustainability, and the Health and Biomedical Sciences, the latest edition of the report has expanded to include a dedicated accompanying report on early-stage Cybersecurity startups, reflecting the sector’s importance in an evolving landscape of cyber threats driven by frontier technologies.
Despite funding dip, incorporations remained stable and deal volume climbed
Singapore’s early-stage emerging tech startups saw overall growth in deal activity year-on-year, rising from 49 deals in 2023 to 56 in 2024. However, the total of US$371M raised was 8% lower than the year prior (US$402M). Funding activity once again favoured early-stage dealmaking, as VCs likely sought earlier opportunities less exposed to economic volatility.
Notably, the report highlights a 56% rise in the number of intermediate funding rounds (Seed+/Pre-A/A+) raised in 2024 (14) compared to 2023 (9). As tentative market conditions persisted, more founders likely opted for bridging rounds to better navigate mixed economic signals, or to extend their capital runways ahead of subsequent institutional funding rounds.
Meanwhile, the number of emerging tech startups identified within their year of incorporation remained relatively consistent between 2023 (25) and 2024 (27). The largest changes around incorporations were seen in the Health and Biomedical Sciences and Agrifood verticals, the former seeing a 44% increase in new companies while the latter registered a sharp 83% decline. However, as observed in the previous edition of the report, the final number of 2024 incorporations is likely to grow as more startups minted last year become visible.
“Singapore’s early-stage emerging tech startup ecosystem has demonstrated resilience amidst continued global market uncertainties”, said Mr. Tong Hsien-Hui, Executive Director – Investments at SGInnovate. “Given the sustained global discourse surrounding trade, technological sovereignty, energy security and climate change, it was expected that the Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainability sectors have attracted strong investor interest over the past year.”
Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainability emerged as key growth drivers
2024 proved to be a positive year for early-stage startups in Singapore’s Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainability spaces, propelled by global demand for higher computing power to support advancements in AI, and for decarbonisation solutions to meet both national and corporate sustainability goals.
The Advanced Manufacturing space—encompassing areas such as Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Materials, Automation, Sensors and Electronics, and Space Tech—saw a total of 14 deals in 2024, reversing a three-year downtrend that had been attributed to a shift in investor preferences towards digital startups. The Sensors and Electronics space led this resurgence, attracting half of the sector’s total 2024 deal count.
At the same time, the Sustainability sector attracted the most deals among the four main verticals for the second consecutive year, while continuing an upward trend in startup incorporations over a five-year rolling basis. The Decarbonisation space alone raised 70% of the vertical’s total funding value in 2024, which could also be due to the larger up-front investments required for infrastructure development.
Meanwhile, young companies in the Health and Biomedical Sciences space appear to be benefiting from a maturing local ecosystem, which is offering increasingly robust support and attracting further investor interest. However, perennial challenges including high capital expenditure and a lack of skilled late-stage translational talent remain, likely explaining the sector’s high strike-off rate. Similarly, the Agrifood sector was constrained by extant scaling hurdles such as unit economics and high production costs. The sector also saw a high number of funding rounds that were either undisclosed or comprised purely of existing investors – highlighting a trend of market consolidation that has reduced the pool of capital available to new entrants.
Tracking developments in Singapore’s early-stage Cybersecurity startup landscape
This year, SGInnovate introduced an accompanying report focused on Cybersecurity, with the aim of tracking the growth of the early-stage Cybersecurity startup ecosystem here. It serves to analyse young startups in the space, and shed light on development and investment trends in the sector over time.
“This new report on Cybersecurity reflects growing conversations around Cybersecurity commercialisation and translation, supported by various government initiatives and investment activities”, said Tong. “It also speaks to the importance of Cybersecurity to safeguard sensitive data and digital infrastructure, especially as frontier technologies such as GenAI and quantum computing drive the emergence of new and more advanced cyber risks”.
Buoyed by healthy investor interest and expanded government support, 68 new Cybersecurity product startups were incorporated in Singapore between 2020 and 2024, with incorporations holding steady at an average of 13 per year—suggesting that the local pipeline of Cybersecurity companies is on a positive overall trajectory.
In terms of funding, 42% of the 68 startups had successfully fundraised, taking an average of one year to secure their first institutional capital. In 2024 alone, Singapore’s early-stage Cybersecurity startup ecosystem saw one acquisition, and raised a cumulative US$42.5M across 10 deals. Half of these transactions came from the Security Operations and Governance, Risk and Compliance sub-verticals—reflecting the need for organisations to adopt solutions that help them navigate the complexities of these specific domains.
However, the ecosystem still has considerable room for growth, as indicated by mean Seed (US$1.8M) and Series A (US$11.3M) round sizes which lagged global averages (US$3.3M and US$13.6M respectively). Notably, the report observed that most investors in local Cybersecurity startups had invested in only one company, with few being repeat investors. As more private sector and Cybersecurity-focused investors enter the space over time, the investment landscape could see a shift from a more opportunistic approach to one centred around long-term portfolio building, in turn leading to a more consistent pipeline of new Cybersecurity startups.
The outlook for 2025 and beyond
Looking ahead, private markets are likely to remain cautious due to the ongoing impact of trade and geopolitical uncertainty. Yet, these conditions could catalyse innovation particularly in areas such as photonics and semiconductors, where Singapore possesses deep, well-established capabilities and expertise. Intensifying interest and competition in these areas is likely to drive ecosystem activity, and discussions around talent and infrastructure.
At the same time, advancements in computing are propelling demand from both public and private sectors for reliable renewable energy solutions. With growing global commitments to hydrogen and renewed interest around the potential of nuclear technologies, Singapore’s emerging tech ecosystem may see increased translational activity in these domains.
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About SGInnovate
SGInnovate is a Deep Tech ecosystem builder and investor, backed by the Singapore Government. Our expertise and approach combines investments, talent development and community-building to catalyse the translation of emerging technologies into tomorrow’s opportunities. Through our flagship Deep Tech Central platform, we connect individuals, founders and companies to specialised resources and opportunities across all technological domains and stages of growth. Our portfolio of emerging tech startups comprises some of the most promising companies leading the commercialisation of research developed from Singapore’s RIE ecosystem.
Connect with us at www.sginnovate.com.
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Zachary Wickeremasuriya
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SGInnovate
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