Entrepreneur First in Singapore: a rocket ship year...

Entrepreneur First's first Singapore cohort graduated 3.5 years ago and since then we’ve gone from upstarts to the most active investor in SE Asia, according to TechInAsia. It seems a good time to reflect on what’s been, COVID aside, a banner year for EF in the region…

Despite the pandemic, our team in SG has been breaking records. Applications to EF are up >55% y-o-y. The SG portfolio has raised more capital in 2020 than in the previous 3 years put together. There have been some particular highlights…

Transcelestial raised $10m in July for its space laser network for high-speed internet connectivity. People used to say you couldn’t do deep tech in SG, but Rohit and Danesh are making science fiction reality.

See-Mode raised $7m in August for their stroke prediction and prevention technology. And followed it up this month by achieving FDA clearance in record time

We were delighted to co-invest with Sequoia Surge in Pencil’s latest round as they scale their creative AI that automatically generates advertising language and visuals

Sensorflow raised a further $8m to fuel the growth of their HVAC optimisation solution, already in 10,000 hotel rooms across the region

Shiok Meats raised a $12m Series A to scale their unique cell-based clean shrimp company - and had this great profile in the Economist

It’s amazing to see such strong results so quickly. Singapore was our first international expansion and lots of people were skeptical. But Alice and I were blown away by the talent in NUS, NTU, SUTD and beyond…

And of course we were lucky to have great supporters and true believers from the beginning - people like Shao-Ning Huang, Der Shing Lim, Paul Santos, Teik Guan, Tan Steve Leonard and SGI - and two great entrepreneurs Alex Crompton and Anne Marie Droste

It really feels like we’re just getting started in the region, thanks to an incredible team led by Bernadette Cho, we’re now systematically helping great founders build global businesses out of Singapore.

One upside from COVID is that it’s easier than ever to invest in startups remotely and take advantage of the fact that extraordinary talent is global. If you’re a seed/Series A investor anywhere in the world who wants to access these globally ambitious startups in Singapore, feel free to drop me a note.