Majority of SG’s emerging tech startups are IHL, venture studio spinoffs

Advanced manufacturing tops the list with 56% spinoff startups.

More than half of Singapore’s early-stage emerging tech startups founded between 2020 and 2024 originated as spinoffs from Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) or venture studios, according to the SGInnovate Singapore Early-Stage Emerging Tech Startups 2024 landscape report.

Advanced manufacturing led with 56% of startups spun out of these sources, followed by health and biomedical sciences and sustainability at 53% each.

Agrifood was the exception, with only 39% of startups taking this route.

The report said the higher share in advanced manufacturing and health and biomedical sciences reflects the maturity of these R&D-driven ecosystems, backed by strong institutional pipelines and translational research capabilities.

By contrast, Agrifood startups—particularly in plant-based foods and AgriTech—are more often founded by industry professionals than spun out of research, as these sectors are less R&D-intensive.

The report also highlighted the growing role of industry accelerators and incubators such as MedTech Actuator, HATCH, Big Idea Ventures, Singapore Space & Technology Ltd, NAMIC, and The Yield Lab in supporting early-stage ventures.

A NOTE FROM SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia