The adolescent ecosystem: Singapore reaching puberty

People can’t seem to agree on Singapore these days.

Barely one month after Compass released their Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 report qualifying Singapore as the 10th best startup ecosystem in the world, a new report by the folks over at SparkLabs Global Venture resoundingly dismissed that claim with some good, ol’ fashioned shade.

In an article on e27, Bernard Moon, managing director at SparkLabs, says:

“We know that from looking at a lot of Singaporean deals that 1) There is a lack of Series A investors, and 2) There is definitely a lack of historical exists. We would never put Singapore in our top 10, maybe even top 20.” (emphasis mine)

My response:

This dude’s trippin’. 

First, let’s ignore the egregious omission of Japan from his list of top global ecosystems. Second, let’s also ignore the tremendous amount of butthurt that I am totally and openly willing to admit I felt in light of Singapore’s efforts over the last 15 years.

Cue 500 Startups’ Tim Chae, Kim Ngo, and Arnaud Bonzom:

TL;DR: Tim noted that Singapore didn’t have a history of exits (which, to his credit, Bernard also points out in his chat with e27). Both Kim and Arnaud took issue with that, and as they both rightly claim, there have been 12 notable Singapore exits in recent memory.