Singapore’s EDBI, SEEDS help 25 local startups secure $159m in funding

Singapore investment firms EDBI and SEEDS have jointly facilitated and supported fundraising for S$216 million by 25 tech startups based in the city-state to date, through the Special Situation Fund for Startups (SSFS).

According to a statement, the 25 startups span sectors such as e-commerce, edtech, enterprise technology, fintech, healthcare, and tourism, and account for over 1,200 jobs.

These include roles related to software engineering, product development, and data science.

The funding was made through SSFS, an investment scheme introduced in June last year to catalyse investments into high-potential startups to help them sustain their growth momentum.

According to the announcement, startup doing well pre-COVID-19 may face cash flow or fundraising difficulties in a more challenging financing climate.

Under this scheme, EDBI and SEEDS Capital may co-invest with private sector investors into selected startups.

Partnering such co-investors helps to provide sufficient investment into these early to late-stage technology startups with innovative and
strategic capabilities that can contribute to Singapore’s national priorities.

Private investors that co-invested with EDBI and SEEDS Capital in the SSFS include global and regional venture capital firms, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutional investors.

Some examples of the startups EDBI invested into include TAIGER, a company that provides enterprises with AI tools to automate complex cognitive tasks in end-to-end operations; and ImmunoScape, a biotech company with an immunomics-based technology platform that provides novel insights into the human immune system to better understand immunotherapy safety and efficacy, and to identify drug targets.

Some examples of the startups SEEDS Capital invested into include impress.ai, which specialises in enterprise recruitment solutions that combines industrial organisational psychology and AI algorithms to localise and automate hiring processes; and CardUp, a payment platform that brings both payments and collections into one easy-to-use digital platform, helping business owners to improve processes such as cash flow management and unlocking of rewards on existing credit cards through automation.