What I have learned watching foreign tech companies build in Singapore

When foreign technology companies first speak to me about Singapore, the conversation usually starts with one of three things: customers, talent or tax. Government funding often comes much later.

That surprises me because Singapore has a sizeable ecosystem of grants, tax incentives and investment support available to companies building substantive operations here. But there is an important distinction that many foreign founders miss: Singapore is generally not trying to fund a two-person foreign startup simply because it has incorporated here.

The more interesting support is aimed at companies that already have something to bring to Singapore: proprietary technology, global traction, credible investors, meaningful R&D, or the ability to create high-value jobs and capabilities.

After working with foreign technology companies exploring Singapore, I have come to think about market entry in four ways.

Singapore funding is often for scale-ups, not startup formation

There is a persistent assumption that government grants are primarily startup money. For foreign companies, I often see the opposite.

The profile that tends to become interesting is closer to this: a technology company with meaningful global revenue or reputable institutional backing, proprietary technology, a genuine plan to expand into Singapore, and sufficient resources to hire and invest here over several years.

For R&D-oriented companies, for example, we typically start paying much closer attention when there is a credible plan to establish a Singapore R&D team, hire multiple technical employees and commit meaningful annual expenditure locally. That is fundamentally different from a founder looking for SG$100,000 (US$78,300) to test whether an idea works.

Singapore’s Economic Development Board’s Research and Innovation Scheme for Companies, or RIS(C), is specifically designed to support companies developing R&D and innovation capabilities in Singapore. Singapore’s newer Refundable Investment Credit goes further, supporting significant investments in areas including headquarters activities, centres of excellence, R&D, digital services and advanced manufacturing.

The lesson is simple: traction before subsidy is a much stronger proposition than subsidy before traction.

Foreign companies often overlook the two-path funding landscape

Another recurring misunderstanding is that a company needs Singaporean shareholders before Singapore will support it. That is not always true. I explain the landscape to foreign founders as two broad pathways.

The first is for foreign-owned companies making strategic investments into Singapore. This is where EDB becomes particularly relevant. A company may consider support for R&D through RIS(C), significant capital or strategic investment through the Refundable Investment Credit, or tax incentive programmes for qualifying headquarters and other high-value activities. EDB’s current incentive portfolio includes the Pioneer Certificate Incentive, Development and Expansion Incentive and Finance and Treasury Centre Incentive, alongside investment and R&D schemes.

The second pathway opens when a Singapore company meets the applicable local ownership requirements for Enterprise Singapore programmes. A common threshold across many EnterpriseSG schemes is at least 30 per cent Singapore Citizen or PR ownership, traced through to ultimate individual ownership.

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Historically, that pathway has included support for product development, internationalisation and business transformation. The exact programmes are evolving, including the transition of EDG, MRA and PSG into the new EDGE Grant from 30 September 2026.

For a foreign founder, this distinction matters. A wholly foreign-owned subsidiary is not automatically locked out of government support. It simply operates in a different part of the ecosystem.

The grant should follow the Singapore strategy, not create it

This may be the most important lesson. A company should not decide what to build in Singapore by asking, “Which grant gives us the most money?”

Start with the business objective. Do you genuinely need an R&D team here? Are you establishing a regional headquarters? Are you building a centre of excellence? Do you need access to financial institutions, regulators, research institutes or enterprise customers? Are you making a major capital investment? Then work backwards into the funding architecture.

I have seen companies make the mistake of treating Singapore incentives as free money that should justify the investment by themselves. That is usually the wrong framing.

The stronger question is: Would we still want to build this capability in Singapore if there were no grant? If the answer is no, the underlying investment case may not be strong enough.

Government support works best as an accelerator. It can materially change the economics of an investment, allow a company to hire faster, expand an R&D programme or make Singapore more competitive against another shortlisted location. But it should strengthen a real strategy rather than manufacture one.

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Grants are only one part of why foreign tech companies choose Singapore

In practice, many of the best companies I meet are just as interested in customers as incentives. For fintech companies, that might mean access to major banks, financial institutions and the wider financial ecosystem. For enterprise technology companies, Singapore can offer reference customers that become useful when expanding elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Singapore can therefore function less as the largest end-market and more as a regional launchpad.

Talent matters too, although there is a trade-off. Singapore has strong technical, commercial and managerial talent, but it is not a low-cost hiring location. Companies trying to arbitrage cheap engineering salaries will probably find better locations elsewhere. The economics make more sense when the jobs being created are sufficiently high-value that Singapore’s ecosystem, credibility and connectivity justify the premium.

The same applies to manufacturing. We rarely see a compelling case for bringing ordinary, labour-intensive manufacturing into Singapore. The conversation becomes much more interesting when the activity involves advanced manufacturing, automation, proprietary processes, high-value production or strategic technology.

Singapore is not really buying company registrations

That is perhaps the biggest misconception I have changed my mind about over the years. Singapore is not particularly interested in another foreign company registering an entity, renting a desk and calling itself an APAC headquarters.

What the country competes for is economic substance: R&D, intellectual property, high-value employment, strategic headquarters functions, advanced production, innovation and activities that deepen the surrounding ecosystem. Once a foreign company understands that, Singapore’s grant landscape makes far more sense.

The question stops being: “What grants can I get if I set up in Singapore?” And becomes: “What valuable capability should we build in Singapore, and how can the ecosystem help us build it faster?” That is usually where the much more productive conversation begins.

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