Year-in-Review 2018

In addition to supporting companies through our Market Readiness Assistance Grant programme, we provided on-the-ground facilitation to more than 570 overseas projects for 380 Singapore enterprises – a 25% increase compared to 2017.

45 TACs led 3,800 SMEs to participate in over 250 overseas trade fairs. We also led and facilitated 230 outbound delegations involving 1,700 Singapore companies on overseas business missions to look for partnerships and market opportunities.

We expanded our international network and strengthened in-market support to help Singapore enterprises internationalise.

• Set up our 36^th overseas centre in Nairobi, Kenya to better support enterprises’ entry into fast-growing East Africa market.
• Added 8 new partners in 2 new countries (United Arab Emirates and Cambodia) into our Plug & Play Network to provide in-market entry assistance and advisory to Singapore enterprises.

We continued to strengthen the startup ecosystem and nurture more high-growth startups.

• Together with venture partners, we supported more than 1,000 startups through various StartupSG initiatives covering access to network, funding, incubation and mentorship.
• Co-invested $36.5 million into 52 startups in various industries such as medical technology and clean technology, catalysing about $118 million in private investments into these startups.
• Expanded the pool of investors and appointed 12 more co-investment partners.
• Launched a national startup directory, Startup SG Network (SSN) to connect startups and facilitate business matching. It aims to connect more than 2,800 startups and over 200 venture partners in Singapore’s startup ecosystem.
• Organised second annual startup competition, Slingshot@SWITCH, which attracted more than 1,300 applications from 88 countries – triple the number of applications received in 2017.

In helping startups expand overseas and connect to global innovation hubs, we also expanded the Global Innovation Alliance (GIA) network to 5 new cities, namely Berlin, Munich, Paris, Tokyo and Suzhou. This is in addition to the existing 4 in Bangkok, Beijing, Jakarta and Silicon Valley that were set up in 2017.

Read how igloohome grew from a small startup to having presence in over 80 markets within just 2 years.

• View our 2018 milestones in our Annual Report 2018/2019