An increasing number of Skolkovo’s startups plan to set up their offices in Singapore
- Yarmak Taisiya
May 23, 2016 2:13pm
Skolkovo’s startups ran an extensive roadshow in Singapore on 15-19 May 2016. Seven hi-tech startups took part in the InnovFest unBound conference and held meetings with SPRING + ACE, InfoCommInvestments, IDA, IPI Singapore and NTUtive Innovation Center at Nanyang Technological University. The aim of the meetings was to explore the innovation ecosystem of the country, to study the benefits of opening an office in Singapore and possibilities for attracting venture capital investment.
Singapore skyline
The roadshow coincided with the official visit of the Prime Minister of Singapore Hsien Loong to Russia. Two MOUs were signed during the visit of the Prime Minister, including the MOU with Eurasian Union that will boost economic ties, and MOU between the Russian Academy of Sciences and Nanyang Technological University to develop commercialization of scientific projects.
At the time of the visit the leaders of NTUtive Innovation Center at Nanyang Technological University and Skolkovo’s experts and startup founders exchanged the experience of developing ecosystem for innovation and enterprise and discussed the possibilities for future cooperation in R&D in clean tech, healthcare and security.
Lim Jui, CEO NTUtive Pte ltd, highlighted that students at NTUtive Innovation Center are placed on internship programs to startups, and the university would welcome the opportunity to consider Skolkovo’s startups for internship of their students.
Following the roadshow, VIST Mining Technology, developer of autonomous transportation and teleoperated equipment in mining and logistics, agreed to work with NTU and to study the possibility of opening an R&D lab on the premises of the innovation center. The company is interested in getting access to the Indonesian market via Singapore. HPC HUB, high performance computing private cloud, will install their software and start a pilot project with the National Supercomputer Center of Singapore. Macroscop, intelligent video management software company, considers opening its headquarters in Singapore.
Alexei Vladimirov, Director of Corporate Strategy, VIST Mining Technology: “Singapore may become “Gateway to Asian market” both in autonomous trucks and tele operated mining equipment. We believe that next several years would establish the market and specific regulations for such solutions and customers are ready to implement more robotics to their business. This is the place where we can find technological partners and financial supporting organizations (incubators, VC, PE funds) specific for the Asian market. We assume that we can access a significant part of Asian logistic transportation market and attract investments of $1,5 – 2 million.”
Artem Dogaev, CEO of PDD.TV: “Our company plans to register a Singapore office in 2017, which will promote our innovations for adaptive e-learning that take into account the behavioral characteristics of users in real time, in Asia, including China. Svetofor Group companies plans an IPO on the MICEX Stock Exchange at the end of 2016 to raise $8 million.”
The full list of the startups that took part in the road-show to Singapore includes Cardberry, Macroscop, VIST Mining Company, ABBYY Lingvo Live, PDD.TV, HPC HUB and 2can&ibox.
About the Skolkovo Foundation
The Skolkovo Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in September 2010 by the Russian government with the objective of accelerating Russia’s transformation from a resource-intensive to an innovation-based economy. To achieve this objective, the Foundation is overseeing the creation of the Skolkovo Innovation Center, composed of more than 1,400 high-tech startups, Skolkovo Technopark, the Skolkovo Institute of Technology (Skoltech) - a new graduate research University established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - and Skolkovo city, located near Moscow. Together, these entities establish a vibrant ecosystem of technology innovation and entrepreneurship. Fifty global corporations including Boeing, Cisco Systems, EADS, GE, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Siemens, Nokia, Samsung, and Panasonic have already recognized the opportunity Skolkovo presents by signing R&D partnership agreements with the Foundation. The cumulative revenue of Skolkovo’s startups through December 2015 reached $1 billion. They brought in more than $270 million in investment, creating 17,500 jobs and filing over 1,800 patent applications along the way. By 2020 over 2 million square meters of residential and office space will be built in Skolkovo with 35,000 people working daily in the Innovation Center. For more information: http://www.sk.ru/en
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