Healthtech startups in Singapore attracted over USD 105 million worth of investments in 2018, according to Singapore’s Healthtech Ecosystem report authored by Galen Growth Asia.
Across APAC, digital healthcare startups attracted USD 6.3 billion in funding across 294 deals that year. Singapore’s deal value accounted for 24% of the total deal value.
In terms of the number of deals, Singapore had 7% of the total deal volume, which is approximately 21 deals.
According to the report, there were 58 unique investors in Singapore in the past year, with some of the notable local-based investors being SG Innovate, Heritas Venture Fund, Venturecraft, and Wavemaker Partners.
Of the mix of investors, 34 are venture capital firms. The rest are corporates/corporate venture capital, family offices, angel investors, and other startups.
The report also charted the growth of Singapore’s health tech ecosystem from 2012 to 2018. In particular, the number of startups grew from just 45 in 2012 to 174 in 2018.
Meanwhile, Singapore also saw an increase in the types of healthtech startups. It’s also maturing, which means there are now fewer early-stage startups and more that have reached Series A and B stages.
The healthtech startup community is international, with 60% of the CEOs of the top 20 startups in this sector hailing from overseas.
As a result, Singapore is increasingly seen as the hotbeds for healthtech startups. Accelerators like BlueChilli have moved into Singapore to provide tech development services to healthtech startups. Locally, there is also an increase in initiatives targeting the sector, such as the launching of Catalyst, a hub for healthcare startups.
