Its reputation of political neutrality — and strength in life sciences — is making Singapore a favoured launchpad for western investors and Chinese startups.

Supertree Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Credit: Bill Roque

Two years ago, Polaris Partners, the investment arm of US pharmaceutical company Polaris, opened an office in Singapore as it started to ramp up investments in the Asian country.

“Singapore has an extraordinary ecosystem,” says Amy Schulman, managing partner at Polaris Partners. “It has first rate science that gets a good amount of government support. It has terrific intellectual property protection, and it has organised rule of law system that makes things very appealing.”

Singapore’s favourable tax system and English-speaking business community have also made it an ideal jumping off point for international companies seeking to set up in Asia.

But central to its recent growth is also its reputation for political neutrality. It has avoided the geopolitical and economic tensions that have divided the US and China over the past few years.

For this reason, it is also a favoured place for Chinese startups and investors. Chinese companies find it easier to raise funding from international investors by being based in Singapore. Chinese VC investors and family offices can also target both the Chinese market as well as the US market by being based in the country.

Refuge for Chinese startups

“It is easier for companies to go public if they are based in Singapore as investors might shun away listing in China versus Singapore,” says Peter Chun, founder of Hong Kong-based investment banking firm Silverbear Capital. “For companies wanting to raise capital from western markets, Singapore is much easier.”

China’s economic downturn, partly precipitated by strict lockdowns during the covid-19 pandemic, have also driven startups, multinational companies and high-net-worth individuals to prefer Singapore over Hong Kong, which traditionally was Asia’s hub for international finance and trade. “Chinese government policies have massively affected how startups view Hong Kong now and many are preferring Singapore,” says Chun.

“Chinese government policies have massively affected how startups view Hong Kong now and many are preferring Singapore.”

Peter Chun, founder, Silverbear Capital

Taiwanese investors and startups, in particular, have made Singapore a base. Taiwanese startups are especially strong in the medical device and semiconductor sectors and have come to Singapore to licence their intellectual property to target both China and US markets.   

Chinese companies that have expanded operations in Singapore include e-commerce retailer Alibaba, gaming and entertainment company Tencent and internet technology firm Bytedance, the owner of social media platform TikTok. Microsoft, Google and FedEx are some of the international businesses that have established Asian headquarters in Singapore.   

Life sciences cluster

Apart from political neutrality, global pharmaceutical investors are also attracted to Singapore because of the country’s strong expertise in life sciences. Corporate venturing units that have expanded into Singapore include Leaps by Bayer, the investment arm of German pharmaceutical and biotech company Bayer, and Danaher Ventures, the corporate VC arm of the life sciences and diagnostics company Danaher. Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the venturing arm of the US pharmaceutical company, has established an accelerator, JLabs Singapore, in the country.

The Singaporean government has played a key role in supporting the local startup ecosystem through several funding vehicles such as EDBI, the Singapore government’s investment arm, the National Health Innovation Center and Seeds Capital, part of Enterprise Singapore. Singapore’s maturing life sciences sector has prompted Singapore state-owned investor Temasek to launch ClavystBio, a VC investor and venture builder focused on life sciences, in 2022.   

“The Singapore life sciences scene is at a very interesting growth trajectory,” says ClavystBio CEO Khoo Shih, who spent 17 years as an investor at Temasek. She says the tipping point came at the start of 2000 when the sector reached a level of maturity following two decades of government funding.

One of ClavystBio’s recent investments is in Singapore-based Automera, a developer of autophagy-driven degradation technology. The company was founded by Australian scientists who decided to build the venture in Singapore.

Another ClavystBio investment— which has also drawn in a number of international investors — is bat biology research company Paratus Sciences, a spinout founded by a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the US, and Mount Sinai Health System, a New York hospital network. The startup uses bat genomes to form the basis of new treatments for human diseases. In addition to ClavystBio, the company’s backers include Polaris Partners, Leaps by Bayer, and Alexandria Venture Investments, the strategic investment arm of US life science real estate company Alexandria.

“The Singapore life sciences scene is at a very interesting growth trajectory.”

Khoo Shih, ClavystBio

“We are constantly in the ecosystem, talking to people and looking at other things that we might want to invest in,” says Schulman, of Polaris Partners. Singapore ventures that Polaris Partners has recently invested in include Engine Biosciences, a Singapore and US-headquartered company that develops precision medicines using machine learning and genomics. Polaris Partners also partnered with an academic researcher from the National University of Singapore to create a company developing a diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease.

“We value the approach that Singapore takes to scientific development and company creation. The relationships that we have been able to build have been so important to our stickiness to the environment there,” says Schulman.

Tapping university research

University spinouts have been a particular source of investment for multinational investors. Singapore’s universities recently set up investment units to fund spinouts emerging from the country’s academic research. Duke NUS Medical School, a collaboration between Duke University in the US and the National University of Singapore, had a notable success with one of its biotech ventures, Enleofen Bio, which received $1bn from German pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim for the exclusive rights to its technology for treating fibrosis in 2020. At the time, it was the biggest deal for a Singaporean biotech company.   

Building on this success, Duke NUS Medical School launched Live Ventures, an incubator and S$20m ($15m) funding programme, in 2024 to help commercialise academic research.

Also last year, Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and VC firm Walden International launched a S$50m fund to invest in spinouts.    

Live Ventures funds and invests in ventures alongside 65Lab, a drug discovery investment vehicle created by a consortium of multinationals including German drug discovery and developer Evotec, Leaps by Bayer, Polaris Partners, ClavystBio and Lightstone Ventures. These partners have the option to be lead investors in the ventures they have co-funded at the company formation stage.    

Live Ventures has four technologies it is incubating, including a technology for treating inflammatory bowel disease, a novel target for anti-fibrotic disease treatment and a radiopharmaceutical technology.

Chinese investors have shown interest in investing in life science startups coming from the university and have sought to leverage the expertise of Live Ventures to do due diligence on investments. Rainny Xie, head of Live Ventures, says a Chinese family office has invested in a couple of startups from Duke-NUS. Chinese investors typically prefer to be part of a syndicate of investors rather than lead deals because they tend to not have deep experience in life sciences, says Xie. Chinese investors are also seeking to license the intellectual property from Duke NUS Medical School labs.

Singapore’s green energy technology is also attracting investors. Data centre and digital infrastructure provider DayOne, which operates in several Asian countries, raised $1.2bn through a series B round in December 2024. Coatue Management, The Baupost Group and SoftBank Vision Fund were part of the fundraising. Another data centre developer for the Asian market, Digital Edge, raised $1.6bn in January this year.