4 Singapore firms given $7.3m in venture capital funds each by NRF

Photo credit: Lenny K Photography.

Via Channel NewsAsia:

Four large local enterprises (LLEs) have each been awarded S$10 million in venture capital funds by the National Research Foundation (NRF) to invest in local tech start-ups, the third instalment of NRF’s Early Stage Venture Fund (ESVF).

Under this scheme, the NRF will match investments by LLEs in technology start-ups on a 1:1 basis, up to S$10 million (US$7.3 million). The four selected LLEs are: CapitaLand, DeClout, Wilmar International and YCH Group.

What’s interesting here are the diversity of industries represented. Capitaland is active in retail and property, DeClout is involved in cloud, data centers, and ecommerce, Wilmar in agriculture, and YCH in logistics. This approach of funding corporations is also a departure from past iterations of the ESVF scheme, which funded independent venture capital firms.

Capitaland reached out to Tech in Asia stating that, including the US$7.3 million, its total fund size is US$18 million. It’s looking for technologies in these areas:

• design and construction
• operations and maintenance
• sales and leasing
• customer engagement
• workplace productivity
• smart living solutions

A benefit of getting an investment from Capitaland is that it can offer its various retail, housing, and office properties as testbeds for technology. It has properties in over 150 cities around the world.

According to a press release which Tech in Asia received from YCH, its venture arm will be called Supply Chain Angels. It will focus on logistics-related fields. More specifically:

• The “Uberisation” of logistics
• Internet of things related to the supply chain
• 3d printing for on-demand manufacturing
• Big data to automate supply chain decision making.
• Robotics like warehouse bots
• Fintech for managing supply chain finance

YCH will even house startups it backs in its US$146 million headquarters, dubbed the Supply Chain City. It will also provide access to logistics experts.

The company was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in Singapore.

Converted from US dollars. US$1 = S$1.4.