SGInnovate to Drive Technology-Based Innovation Through Mindset Change and Curated Productive Interaction

Strategic partners and aspiring entrepreneurs to build and scale technology-based innovation from Singapore for the world

22 November 2016, Singapore: Announced earlier this year as part of Budget 2016, SGInnovate is officially launched today to focus on enabling aspiring entrepreneurs in Singapore to build, commercialise and scale technology-based innovations from Singapore that will have global relevance. The launch was officiated by Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister & Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies.

Placed under the purview of the National Research Foundation, SGInnovate has made the entrepreneur its focus. Bringing together founders, investors, corporates - and supported by a range of Singapore government agencies - SGInnovate will work with people who pursue the creation and building of technology-based products and companies from Singapore. Areas of activity will include digital health, financial services, smart energy, digital manufacturing, transportation, artificial intelligence and robotics.

SGInnovate will build on its prior heritage of being Infocomm Investments Pte Ltd (IIPL), the venture investment arm of the former Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). It will also capitalise on its experience in running start-up facilities such as BASH (Build Amazing StartUps Here), which is now a well-known collaboration space in the start-up community.

Speaking at the official launch of SGInnovate, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister & Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies, said, “SGInnovate is itself a start-up, and it would require a different set of capabilities from the usual government agency work. I foresee that SGInnovate will keep piloting, prototyping and pivoting in the coming years. It will do what is needed, to run alongside deep-tech entrepreneurs in Singapore, on their journey towards developing pioneering solutions for the world."

Founding Chief Executive Officer of SGInnovate, Mr Steve Leonard, said, “Singapore already has a thriving innovation and start-up ecosystem. But we know we can do more to empower ambitious and capable men and women to pursue entrepreneurship. Our belief is that Singapore has the ability to imagine, design and build technology-based products that are relevant in markets around the world. SGInnovate is about making that happen as part of Singapore's economic future.”

At launch, SGInnovate starts off as home to some of the engineers and research scientists from SMART, McLaren Applied Technologies, NVIDIA, and Ethereum – each group bringing ambitious projects and/or thinking across the spectrum of the technology and science spaces.

SGInnovate will connect these partners with the combined intellectual expertise across diverse areas like robotics, blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) from its varsity partners – NUS, NTU, SIT and SUTD – so that the most advanced research and developments in the deep tech and science space are on tap to the community of entrepreneurs. In turn, academics and students from these varsities will similarly leverage the SGInnovate ecosystem to advance cutting-edge ideas and ambitious projects of their own in the deep tech an.d science space.

Partners like Entrepreneur First will enable start-ups from incubation phase – pre-idea, pre-product and pre-team – through to conceptualisation, development and commercialisation, while IPOS will help partners to protect their innovations and original ideas.

Following today’s launch, SGInnovate will introduce initiatives and platforms, co-organised with its partners, to facilitate the discovery of new solutions across a myriad of sectors. Some of the upcoming initiatives include AI Evenings @ SGInnovate and MIT Hacking Medicine. Supported by partners such as NVIDIA and McLaren Applied Technologies, AI Evenings @ SGInnovate, will comprise workshops and networking sessions for a community interested in Artificial Intelligence (AI). MIT Hacking Medicine, which is co-organised with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will be held in Singapore from 10-12 February 2017.

Researchers, innovators, venture capitalists and industry mentors interested to be a part of the SGInnovate community and broaden the horizons of the Singapore innovation ecosystem can visit sginnovate.com for more information.

About SGInnovate 

At SGInnovate, we believe that Singapore has all the resources and capabilities needed to tackle ‘hard problems' that matter to people around the world. As part of our Deep Tech Nexus Strategy, we are focused on adding tangible value to the Singapore deep tech startup ecosystem in two key areas – development of Human Capital and deployment of Investment Capital. With the support of our partners and co-investors, we back deeply technical founders through equity-based investments, access to talent, and support in building customer traction. Our efforts are prioritised around transformational technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and MedTech, which represent impactful and scalable answers to global challenges. SGInnovate is a private-limited company wholly owned by the Singapore Government. 

For more information, please visit www.sginnovate.com

For media enquiries, please get in touch with the following:

Cheryl Yab
Hill+Knowlton Strategies
+65 6390 3331 | +65 8869 3946
[email protected]

Christopher Sim
Hill+Knowlton Strategies
+65 6390 3349 | +65 9004 9700
[email protected]

SzeKi Sim
SGInnovate
[email protected]