As part of the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2015 plan, the government has approved the establishment of Sector Specific Accelerators (SSA) to identify, invest and grow start-ups in strategic but nascent sectors, starting with the Biomedical Science Sector.
Nascent sectors are characterised by few local enterprises; limited pool of domain experts; and absence of early stage investors. While these sectors received significant Research and Development funds, there are insufficient enterprises to commercialise the intellectual property resulting from the R&D; hence the economic benefits could not be realised. The SSA approach was deemed an effective way to address the identified issues.
S$40 million has been set aside to pilot the SSA initiative via the Biomedical Science Accelerator (BSA) with an initial focus on the Medical Technology (MedTech) subsector. Two BSA Operators have been appointed. SPRING SEEDS Capital (SSC), the manager of the BSA Programme, will co-invest in the start-ups identified by the BSA Operators on a 1:1 basis.
The two BSA Operators are Clearbridge BSA Pte Ltd and Singapore Medtech Accelerator Pte Ltd.
To qualify for the BSA Program, the start-up must :
- be based in Singapore with core activities carried out here
- demonstrate substantial innovative and intellectual content for its products and/or services and/or applications
- have high growth potential with scalability for the global market
Clearbridge BSA Pte Ltd
Mr Johnson Chen
Tel : (65) 6873 0778
Email :
johnson@clearbridgebsa.com
Website :
www.clearbridgeaccelerator.com
Singapore Medtech Accelerator Pte Ltd
Dr Foo Fatt Kah
Tel : (65) 6223 9628
Email :
kah@luminorcapital.com.sg
Website :
www.smta.com.sg/