EDB pledges additional $25 M funding, encourages collaborations with startups
To keep encouraging corporate venturing in Singapore, the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) is pledging S$32 million ($24.57 million) in new funding over the following two years.
The third iteration of the Corporate Venture Launchpad (CVL 3.0), according to a statement released by EDB on Thursday, also seeks to facilitate the formation of partnerships between startups and Singapore-based enterprises.
The EDB New Ventures team, in collaboration with nine newly appointed CVL 3.0 partners, will collaborate with chosen companies to drive innovation in novel growth domains.
The partners will assist businesses in launching new projects and building capacities for productive corporate-startup partnerships.
It should be mentioned that S$10 million ($7.68 million) in pilot funding was used to launch the first edition of CVL in May 2021.
More companies were added to the program in July 2022, and S$20 million ($15.36 million) in additional funding was committed by EDB.
With more ventures in the works, EDB has assisted 24 companies in launching 14 new ventures since the launch of CVL.
These businesses target regional markets, employ exciting people in Singapore, and have their headquarters there.
Additionally, they have gotten follow-on funding totaling more than S$70 million ($53.75 million) from both new and existing investors.
At least ten of these businesses are developing several projects, and some have even set up their own specialized ventures.
Opportunities in emerging growth sectors like artificial intelligence (AI) and sustainability are the focus of six of the new ventures.
“The CVL program has been a catalyst for companies to innovate for growth by leveraging Singapore’s world-class business ecosystem,
“CVL 3.0 reaffirms EDB’s commitment to partner businesses to deepen their innovation footprint here through venture creation, and drive win-win collaborations between corporates and startups,” said Jacqueline Poh, Managing Director of EDB.
As per the announcement, the expanded CVL 3.0 program will provide assistance for corporate-startup partnerships, thereby offering businesses an extra avenue to obtain cutting-edge products, services, and technology.
Companies will collaborate with Open Innovation Partners to find established, high-caliber startups and form partnerships with them in order to produce significant commercial results, rather than starting their own business.
These results could be co-developing goods in Singapore to open up new revenue streams or implementing cost- and productivity-cutting strategies.
By utilizing Singapore’s genuine corporate demand, startups will have more growth prospects and contribute to the development of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.
