Singapore has made an increasingly strategic push to growing its start-up ecosystem. Over the past several decades its community of investors, entrepreneurs, accelerators, unicorns and startups have grown. Singapore’s startup ecosystem has a $21 billion value, exceeding the global average of $10.5 billion. The primary reasons are the efficient tax regime, ease of doing business, and the pro business policies.
The Singapore government actively supports start-ups in many ways. The government helps to grow and expand young startups by introducing new schemes for businesses constantly. Singapore startups can postpone paying taxes until they are more established. Angel Investors play a critical role in expanding the pipeline of investible businesses by providing startups with essential resources including capital to bridge the funding gap and networks to unlock business opportunities that facilitate growth. We have compiled a list of active angel investors who are spearheading Singapore’s tech renaissance.
List of Top 25 Startups to Watch in Singapore
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1. Skuad
Skuad is a digital payroll platform to build, pay, and manage globally distributed teams. Through its Global Employment Platform, the company helps employers build and pay their remote workforce seamlessly, without needing to set up local entities. The platform not only automates global payroll, local compliance, and taxation but also provides benefits for employees to spread across geographies.
Industry: Fin-Tech, Financial Services
Founders: Dave Fall, Naman Singhal, Sundeep Sahi
Total Funding: $4M
Founded Date: 2019
2. CardUp
CardUp is on a mission to provide individuals and businesses with a better way to pay and get paid. Its payment platform simplifies the lives of business owners, bringing both payments and collections into one easy-to-use digital platform. These no-code solutions improve cash flow management, unlock rewards on existing cards and save time through automation, all with no software implementation or setup time.
Industry: Fin-Tech
Founders: Nicki Ramsay
Total Funding: $8.6M
Founded Date: 2015
3. Horangi
Horangi provides security software and services backed by a team of CREST-certified global cybersecurity experts in Asia. Its integrated cybersecurity platform is built to comprehensively secure organizations of all sizes with enterprise-grade technology in the cloud. Horangi established a strong brand and a market-leading position in its core markets, with many years of cybersecurity experience, which makes them a top Singapore startup.
Industry: Cyber Security, SaaS
Founders: Lee Sult, Paul Hadjy
Total Funding: $23.1M
Founded Date: 2016
4. Doctor Anywhere
Doctor Anywhere is a Singapore-based health company that provides on demand healthcare solutions to help you lead happier, healthier lives. Their digital platform gives quick access to health and wellness solutions, wherever you are. Their digital platform makes healthcare simple, seamless and convenient, and is optimized to help you manage your health in a way that best suits your lifestyle needs.
Industry: Healthcare
Founders: Lim Wai Mun
Total Funding: $31.1M
Founded Date: 2016
5. Wanchain
Wanchain was founded by Jack Lu in 2017. It is a unique public blockchain with inter-chain transactions and privacy protection. Wanchain has its own protocol for inter-chain transactions, which is based on locked account and threshold signature. With it, wanchain can support multi-assets trading.
Industry: Blockchain
Founders: Jack Lu
Total Funding: $36M
Founded Date: 2017
6. Moglix
Moglix is an online marketplace for business supplies and industrial equipment. It is an Asia-based B2B commerce company intensively inclined towards B2B procurement of industrial supplies, in particular, MRO, Safety, Electrical & Lighting, Cleaning & Laundry Supplies, Office Supplies, Tools and many more industry essentials.
Industry: E-Commerce, B2B, Marketplace.
Founders: Rahul Garg
Total Funding: $222.2M
Founded Date: 2015
7. Electrify
ELECTRIFY is the next evolution in electricity retail and decentralized power production. Started by two senior executives from the energy industry, ELECTRIFY is Singapore’s first retail electricity marketplace. With the liberalisation of the energy market in Singapore, consumers can now choose how they want to buy electricity—from cheaper prices to renewable sources, bundled deals to power saving offers.
Industry: Energy, Marketplace
Founders: Julius Tan
Total Funding: $30M
Founded Date: 2017
8. AnyMind Group
AnyMind Group has created one of the first end-to-end brand enablement platforms, developing and providing inter-connected software and offerings to enable individuals and businesses – from brand building, manufacturing and e-commerce, to marketing, logistics and global expansion.
Industry: Advertising
Founders: Kosuke Sogo, Otohiko Kozutsumi.
Total Funding: $62.3M
Founded Date: 2016
9. Funding Societies
Funding Societies is the largest SME digital financing platform in Southeast Asia. It is licensed in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and registered in Malaysia. It is backed by Sequoia India and Softbank Ventures Asia Corp amongst many others and provides business financing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is funded by individual and institutional investors.
Industry: Fin-Tech, Financial Services.
Founders: Iwan Kurniawan, Kelvin Teo, Reynold Wijaya.
Total Funding: $88.5M
Founded Date: 2015
10. Bezant
Bezant is a decentralized payment protocol that provides fast, secure, and reliable payment solutions so that people from all over the world could access global digital contents without borders with the Jehmi Platform. Bezant allows the users and also the content creators to pay and also receive payment from anywhere on the globe instantly without dealing with accumulating costs from transaction fees.
Industry: Cryptocurrency
Founders: Yuan Wong
Total Funding: $24.8M
Founded Date: 2018
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11. TenX
TenX is a Singapore-based blockchain company that makes cryptocurrencies instantly spendable anytime anywhere. A firm that gives people an opportunity to conveniently use their digital assets in everyday life. It raised USD $80 million in its initial token sale to bring cryptocurrencies to the masses and connect all the blockchains through COMIT network.
Industry: Cryptocurrency, Fin-Tech
Founders: Paul Warrunthorn, Michael Sperk, Julian Hosp.
Total Funding: $125.2M
Founded Date: 2015
12. Ocean Protocol
Ocean Protocol is a decentralized data exchange protocol that unlocks data for AI. Ocean Protocol uses advanced blockchain technology that allows data to be shared and sold in a safe, secure and transparent manner. The firm enables a decentralized platform and network that connects providers and consumers of valuable data, while providing open access for developers to build services.
Industry: Blockchain, Big Data.
Founders: Bruce Pon, Singh Chhabra, Daryl Arnold.
Total Funding: $28.1M
Founded Date: 2017
13. Partipost
Partipost is a crowd marketing platform that connects brands to influencers and everyday people, helping brands access word-of-mouth advertising among social media users with an automated system that can help brands maximize their ROI at a lower cost.
Industry: Marketing, Marketplace.
Founders: Benyamin Ramli, Jonathan Eg, Tony Jen
Total Funding: $6.7M
Founded Date: 2016
14. KyberNetwork
As a liquidity hub, Kyber connects liquidity from a wide range of blockchain sources to provide the best crypto prices for traders and decentralized applications. Kyber is powering more than 100 integrated projects and has facilitated over US$5 billion worth of transactions for thousands of users since its inception.
Industry: Cryptocurrency, Fin-Tech.
Founders: Loi Luu, Victor Tran, Yaron Velner.
Total Funding: $60M
Founded Date: 2017
15. Carro
Carro is an automotive marketplace that offers a full-stack service for all aspects of car ownership. By offering a trustworthy and transparent experience, Carro challenges the traditional way of buying and selling cars through a proprietary pricing algorithm. Founded in 2015, Carro is Southeast Asia’s largest automotive marketplace, with the company having expanded to Thailand and Indonesia in 2017.
Industry: E-Commerce, Automotive Marketplace.
Founders: Aaron Tan, Aditya Lesmana, Kelvin Chng.
Total Funding: $589.5M
Founded Date: 2015
16. Ren
Ren is an open protocol that enables the movement of value between blockchains. Ren aims to bring popular assets like Bitcoin and Zcash to blockchains including Ethereum, making it possible for these assets to participate in a multi-chain decentralized finance ecosystem. Ren was earlier called as Republic Protocol.
Industry: Cryptocurrency, Fin-Tech.
Founders: Taiyang Zhang.
Total Funding: $34M
Founded Date: 2017
17. Zilliqa
Zilliqa is a high-performance, high-security blockchain platform for enterprises and next-generation applications. Developed through academic research and helmed by a team of experienced scientists, engineers, venture creators and leaders in the financial services, Zilliqa addresses limitations in scalability and security, enabling real-world usability across a variety of industries, including finance, digital advertising, and gaming.
Industry: Blockchain, Fin-Tech
Founders: Amriti Kumar, Jia Yaoqi, Max Kantelia.
Total Funding: $1M
Founded Date: 2016
18. Zilingo
Zilingo is a B2B technology platform that powers the global apparel supply chain with innovative solutions for production, sourcing and trade. It was founded in 2015 with a vision to put a connected and transparent supply chain within everyone’s reach. It’s sales volume exceeds US$1 Billion annually.
Industry: E-Commerce
Founders: Ankiti Bose, Dhruv Kapoor.
Total Funding: $307.9M
Founded Date: 2015
19. X Infinity
XInfinity, a Singapore based Fintech Company, is creating a unified cryptocurrency wallet that allows consumers and merchants the ability to transact as easily using any blockchain asset as a currency. X Infinity was founded in 2018 by Eddie Chong.
Industry: Financial Services, Fin-Tech.
Founders: Eddie Chong
Total Funding: $20.5M
Founding Date: 2018
20. Parcel Perform
Parcel Perform is a leading delivery experience platform. It enables modern e-commerce enterprises to create unique end-to-end customer journeys and optimize logistics operations with powerful data integrations, parcel tracking, delivery notifications and logistics performance reports in real-time.
Industry: Logistics, Supply Chain Management
Founders: Arne Jeroschewski, Dana von der Heide
Total Funding: $21.5M
Founded Date: 2016
21. Qtum
Qtum is a hybrid blockchain application platform. It is a global project that aims to be a bridge between the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities, the real world and blockchain world. The Qtum project is proud to be backed by some of the most notable blockchain players, traditional Venture Capitalists, and executives from some of China’s largest technology companies.
Industry: Cryptocurrency.
Founders: Jordan Earls, Patrick Dai.
Total Funding: $17M
Founded Date: 2016
22. oBike
oBike is a dockless bike sharing services platform, allowing everyone to take short trips within the city while promoting a green and car-lite society. As a global leading internet and technology corporation, Its goal is to make the city life more intelligent and convenient by developing the world-wide open sharing traffic service platform.
Industry: Transportation.
Founders: Edward Chen, Yi Shi.
Total Funding: $45M
Founded Date: 2016
23. ADVANCE.AI
ADVANCE.AI is a leading AI and big data company in Asia, helping to solve digital transformation, fraud prevention and process automation for enterprise clients. Started in 2016 and headquartered in Singapore, ADVANCE.AI is a leader in Artificial Intelligence, risk management and digital lending solutions. It currently partners over 1,000 enterprise clients across Southeast Asia, South Asia and Mexico.
Industry: Artificial Intelligence, Big Data.
Founders: Chun Dong Chau, Dong Shou, Jefferson Chan.
Total Funding: $136M
Founded Date: 2016
24. aelf
aelf is the cloud-powered public blockchain for businesses. Its is a decentralized self-evolving cloud computing network. To establish a blockchain infrastructure for various commercial requirements, aelf provides a highly efficient multi-chain parallel-processing system with cross-chain communication and self-evolving governance.
Industry: Blockchain, Cloud Computing.
Founders: Haobo Ma, Zhuling Chen.
Total Funding: $41M
Founded Date: 2017
25. Thunes
Thunes is a B2B company that powers payments for the world’s fastest-growing businesses. Corporates and financial institutions can move funds seamlessly, securely and cost-effectively with Thunes’ well-established, reliable and far-reaching network. Thunes is used by leading global banks, money transfer operators, platforms and many other businesses to make payments to bank accounts, mobile wallets and cash pick-up providers around the world.
Industry: Financial Services, Fin-Tech.
Founders: Peter De Caluwe
Total Funding: $130M
Founded Date: 2016
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