Enterprise Singapore and Its Support for Startups in Southeast Asia

Singapore has been used as hub for the regional startup ecosystem. To contribute and support more to the startup ecosystem, Enterprise Singapore held SWITCH 2022. It is a series of exhibitions, conferences, and even networking between startup activists and stakeholder his supporters. Enterprise Singapore is an agency of the Singapore government funded by the local Ministry of Trade and Industry.

The series of SWITCH events closed with a SLINGSHOT, a competition pitching which gives startups an international platform to introduce themselves to companies, industry veterans and investors; in the hope of establishing mutual collaboration.

Expand the startup ecosystem

The main task of Enterprise Singapore is basically to be enablers startup ecosystem by ensuring that it can give birth to generations founder new smoothly until doing the process scale-up. In addition to serving the global market, these startups are expected to be able to go-global.

"Unlike other similar activities, SWITCH acts like umbrella brand. And SLINGSHOT becomes crown jewels which is global startup pitching competition," said Assistant CEO Enterprise Singapore Edwin Chow.

There were around 90 participants from 2022 countries who joined the SWITCH 350 event. The event also featured more than 300 speakers and more than XNUMX exhibitors from global research, investors, and the startup community. For the Indonesian startup community themselves, they also joined in the activity East Ventures who introduced some of their portfolios.

"Value proposition What we offer is that in Singapore all startups from various countries can meet and find businesses, investors, even talent," said Edwin.

For the first time, SWITCH 2022 features seven regional technology partners to build synergies across the innovation ecosystem. The themes discussed in this event include sustainability innovation and urban development, retail technology, and digital trust.

Asked what the potential of Indonesian startups is in the eyes of Enterprise Singapore, Edwin revealed that he is very interested in what startups from Indonesia have to offer. He has met several startup founders who have the potential to grow positively, one of which is a founder who graduated from ITB.

"What surprises us is that they, namely startup founders from Indonesia, already know Enterprise Singapore and what we have been doing so far," said Edwin.

Indonesia is the largest market in Southeast Asia

On this occasion the Minister of Trade and Industry of Singapore, Gan Kim Yong also expressed his appreciation to the startup community and other supporting parties who were present at the SWITCH 2022 event. According to him, it would be even better for Singapore's startup ecosystem if it had strategic cooperation with related parties.

As a country that has quality education, resources and even opportunities to build a business globally, Singapore is considered the right place for the startup community in Southeast Asia to gather and collaborate together.

"The last two years have been full of challenges and now many countries have started opening up and activities and activities traveling is back to normal. Singapore also wants to do engagement with other countries to make the economy develop. The startup industry is becoming an important thing, especially in the digital economy area, we want to look for innovations and new solutions to solve all challenges."

He added that the SWITCH 2022 event is a good platform for corporations and businesses to come together to collaborate to develop new opportunities, not only in Singapore but also in the region. The goal is to create new innovations and digital solutions.

Indonesia as a target market for foreign startups to launch their business, including Singapore, has been known as a market that can prove whether the business models and services offered by startups from various countries can be successful or not.

According to Gan Kim Yong, Indonesia is a country that has huge potential in South East Asia. If a startup can be successful in Indonesia, it will certainly be able to launch a business in other countries, including Singapore. However, he emphasized that it all depends on the business being offered. Some businesses may find it easier to grow positively in other countries, in smaller or targeted markets.

"I think there are different ways that can be seen, for startups it is usually to pilot project easier to execute, run and access. Especially for Indonesia, I see great potential in greenenergy, including renewable energy, diesel, hydro and others."

To strengthen cooperation between Indonesia and Singapore, it has been built data center at Nongsa Digital Park Batam. Reported from Kompas.id, a Singapore-based company, Data Center First, builds a 30 . capacity data center megawatts in the Nongsa Special Economic Zone, Batam, Riau Islands. The investment for the first phase of the project, named Nongsa One, is worth $40 million or around Rp560 billion. This is expected to encourage regional economic growth and accelerate Indonesia's digital transformation.

"Data center We launched this to build strategic cooperation between Singapore and Indonesia. The hope is that it can help us to develop our business as well as for Indonesia, so win-win solution."