A view of the skyline in Singapore. — Reuters
SINGAPORE: Despite a slump in funding, Singapore’s venture capital market remained active in the first nine months of 2024.
Firms headquartered in the republic raised US$4.05bil across 369 deals in the nine months ending September 2024, down slightly from US$4.3bil and 410 deals in the same period in 2023, according to a report by Enterprise Singapore and research firm Pitchbook issued in November.
The dip in funding placed Singapore behind Beijing, London, New York and Silicon Valley in deal value.
It also trailed those cities, along with Seoul and Tokyo, in deal volume.
On the other hand, the republic captured the lion’s share of venture capital among Asean countries, accounting for 58% of total deal volume and 68% of deal value.
Venture activity was uneven within Singapore’s startup ecosystem, with some sectors seeing dips in deal volume and value, compared with 2023, according to data from the government-backed Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 plan.
The RIE, which is issued every five years, covers domains including smart nation and digital economy, human health and potential, urban solutions and sustainability, as well as manufacturing, trade and connectivity.
The data showed a decline in venture activity for both the general and deep tech sectors in Singapore in 2024, with deep tech seeing a sharper drop.
Deep tech firms refer to those which provide high-tech innovation in engineering, or are based on significant scientific advances.
Local general tech firms secured US$3.2bil across 273 deals, slightly down from US$3.3bil and 292 deals a year ago.
Deep tech firms raised US$800mil across 96 deals, compared with US$1bil and 118 deals in the same period in 2023.
Against this backdrop, the government announced in October that it will invest S$440mil to attract more venture capital firms to invest in local deep tech startups.
The sum will go to the Startup SG Equity scheme run by Enterprise Singapore and the Economic Development Board, expanding the total amount of government funding under the scheme to over S$1bil.
The cap on total government equity has also been increased from S$8mil to S$12mil for each startup. — The Straits Times/ANN
