Targeted at young and innovative enterprises, Start-Up EnterprisE Development Scheme (SEEDS) is a co-financing scheme where the government matches up to a dollar for every dollar raised from third party investors up to a maximum of S$300,000 (US$188,700) per company.

Launched in 2001, EDB's Start-Up EnterprisE Development Scheme (SEEDS) celebrates its fifth anniversary this year. Since its launch, it has played a pivotal role in promoting more innovative enterprise formation across diverse industries while stimulating private sector engagement and investment.

EDB's SEEDS financing benefits a whole host of enterprises that come from such high growth industries as electronics, media & communications, IT and exportable services, environmental and water technologies, as well as alternative energy, to name but a few.

Since its launch in 2001 when the number of companies to receive SEED funding was only a modest 10 start-ups, the number of SEEDS'-supported enterprises has since increased to 156 this year. Twenty five per cent of SEEDS' approximate 400 entrepreneurs/founders are foreigners. They hail from a wide range of geographies from the US, UK, Europe, North and South Asia, Australasia and South East Asia. SEEDS' far-reaching scope has thus encouraged not only local - but overseas - innovators to commercialise their technologies from Singapore.

Because of Singapore's strong IP and copyright laws, which are amongst the strongest in the world, many of these companies have grown a sizeable portfolio of ideas, technologies and IP since beginning operations in Singapore. To date, SEEDS’ supported companies hold some 77 patents.

Private sector investors are seeding more enterprises and their engagement is on the rise. Seventy seven of investors are local, while the rest are foreigners. Encouragingly, 70 per cent of the enterprises have already launched their products and services and are generating revenue. Twenty companies have also been able to secure subsequent rounds of financing, of which six have received funding from venture capital firms and corporate investors. Meanwhile, 18 have achieved the million-dollar mark in revenue, and six international awards have been clinched cumulatively over the years.

Last year, an additional S$30 million (US$18.9 million) was injected to SEEDS' existing S$50 million (US$31.5 million) fund. This is on top of the S$30 million (US$18.9 million) Business Angels Scheme (BAS), where pre-approved business angels funds would be supported by government matching equity funding. Positioned as an extension of the existing SEEDS programme, the BAS would stimulate even more proactive business angels' investment activities and valuable mentorship by established and experienced business angels. For more information, go to http://www.sedb.com/edb/sg/en_uk/index/our_services/startups/
financing/startup_enterprise.html.