Singapore-based startups Attonics Systems, Biorithm, Cognicept, dDriven, RADICALi, and TeleMedC form the first batch of companies joining our Scaler8 international market expansion programme, designed to accelerate market entry to Germany.

The six startups, all between late-Seed to Series A, are looking to bring innovative deep technologies in Smart City, Industry 4.0, MedTech and RegTech to Germany, via the Global Innovation Alliance (GIA) landing pads in Berlin and Munich. Scaler8 is run by German Entrepreneurship Asia, a partner of the GIA network – a joint initiative between Enterprise Singapore and the Singapore Economic Development Board.

“I am impressed by the innovative technology and quality of the founders in Scaler8’s first batch. The startups’ strong desire to establish themselves in Germany, and readiness to take on the European market is indicative of the maturity of Singapore’s tech and startup scene,” said Claus Karthe, Co-founder and CEO, German Entrepreneurship Asia.

Over the 11-week Explore programme, Scaler8 will support the startups in their go-to-market strategy, as well as forging valuable connections in Germany. Our startups will first spend 10 weeks in Singapore working with industry experts and mentors in workshops and individual sessions to analyse and adapt their business model, and establish product-market fit to build a competitive market entry strategy. They will then spend 1 week in Germany to immerse in the market, identify market opportunities and meet prospective customers, partners and mentors, as well as government agencies and key players in Germany’s innovation ecosystem.

The six startups

• Attonics Systems (Smart City) bridges the gap between high-end spectroscopy and the growing demands for intuitive, mobile and affordable sensing solutions across various industries
• Biorithm (MedTech) provides an innovative maternal-fetal connected care solution to improve pregnancy outcomes for patients and healthcare providers
• Cognicept (Smart City) provides Human-in-the-loop (HITL) error handling with their telerobotic intervention technology and remote robot pilots to make it easier and more economical to deploy robots
• dDriven (Industry 4.0) is a pioneering Data Platform company that enables the leveraging of industrial data to power digital transformation of manufacturing and business operations
• RADICALi (RegTech) helps compliance professionals deliver certainty to their businesses. They are a regulatory technology firm that helps compliance professionals manage regulatory change intelligently
• TeleMedC (MedTech) developed a regulatory-approved multifunctional imaging device and AI-based software toolkit that provides point-of-care imaging and instant analytics for a wide range of eye diseases

Two markets renowned for Deep Tech 

Singapore has made strides to ensure that it retains its standing as a deep tech hub of Asia. Apart from the strong research and development funding, diversity of startups and tech-focused conglomerates, and growing pool of deep tech talent, global market access is also an area that the government is supporting financially. In the Singapore Budget 2020, deep tech startups can look forward to an additional S$300 million injection under the Startup SG Equity scheme to encourage investments into such companies.

Likewise, Germany is the world’s most innovative economy, with world-renowned research institutes, strong German enterprises and dedicated investments into developing research-based startups – the right environment for deep tech startups.

Our participating startups recognised these strengths of Germany and chose to scale their company to Germany as part of their market expansion strategy via Scaler8. Michael Sayre, CEO and Co-founder of Cognicept, noted that “Germany is world-renowned for its leadership in developing and adopting automation and robotics in manufacturing. Germany will no doubt continue to lead the way in this space, so we anticipate that many German companies will be able to make very good use of Cognicept’s offerings.”

This sentiment was echoed by CEO and Co-founder of Attonics Systems, Philipp von Pein. “Germany has a long standing tradition of global players and ‘hidden champions’, and has always been driven by innovation in sensor and automation technology. In the photonics and spectroscopy sector, numerous suppliers, manufacturers, system integrators and distributors in this space are located in Germany, which gives us strong reason to have Germany as the location of our future European head office”, he mentioned.

With regards to regulations, Shubhankar Srivastava, Co-founder and CTO of RADICALi sees market opportunities in EU’s sophisticated regulatory regime and the fact that firms are increasingly willing to consider and embrace RegTech solutions to facilitate regulatory change management. “We feel this is the perfect time to consider expanding our operations to Europe with a base in Germany, the center of Europe,” he said.

Supported market entry for 4-months

Singapore startups and Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that are keen to delve deeper into expansion strategies and implementation in Germany can join Scaler8 Expand, which is an individual, customised programme format. Companies will be required to pitch to a selection committee, who will assess the growth potential of the company’s product and/or service in Germany, and commitment in establishing a foothold in Germany. The duration of the programme is 4 weeks in Singapore, and subsequently 12 weeks in either Berlin or Munich.

In the next two years, we aim to support 40 Singapore-based startups or SMEs in their business expansion to Germany. Interested companies may express their interest in Scaler8 here.