New S$1 billion innovation fund to drive enterprise growth

SINGAPORE — The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (Ipos) and home-based private equity firm Makara Capital launched a S$1 billion fund on Wednesday (April 26), with aims to invest in companies with strong intellectual property focus, to help them expand into global markets after their initial start-up phase.

The Makara Innovation Fund (MIF) is among a slew of initiatives that are projected to inject S$1.5 billion value-add into the economy and double the number of skilled intellectual property experts in Singapore to 1,000 over the next five years.

“Intellectual property (IP) is going to be an important enabler of Singapore’s growth moving forward,” said the Senior Minister of State for Law and Finance, Ms Indranee Rajah, at the launch of the fund.

“Singapore has a strong IP regime, which will enable local businesses to harness IP for growth. We will focus on helping enterprises to integrate IP into their business strategies early, and to commercialise their IP and scale up.”

The initiatives are in line with the updated IP Hub Master Plan, first launched in 2013 by the Ministry of Law and Ipos. The measures will support the recommendations by the Committee on the Future Economy to strengthen Singapore’s innovation eco-system and build capabilities to help enterprises innovate and scale up, said Ipos.

The fund is looking at investing in 10 to 15 companies over a period of eight to 10 years, with investments in the range of between S$30 million and S$150 million in each of these organisations. 

While the companies could be from any part of the globe, they must be supported by innovation and technology with the ability to create IP assets. 

The idea is for the companies to tap Singapore’s IP eco-system to help them deepen their value creation, compete effectively and expand into the global markets. Employing a “from Singapore and through Singapore” approach, the fund will help anchor the nation as a destination for ideas to be translated into assets, said Ipos in a press statement.

This is part of Singapore’s move towards becoming a global IP hub in Asia, said Mr Daren Tang, CEO of Ipos. “Our focus must shift to IP commercialisation, to allow our enterprises to use IP strategically for growth and global expansion,” he said. 

“We have built deep IP expertise and networks over many years, and are now working hard to build an innovation eco-system that will help local and foreign enterprises transform their ideas into assets, and use Singapore to springboard into the world,” he said.

Ipos will partner the Singapore Business Federation to help its 25,000 members grow through IP and innovation in their business strategies. The partnership will help build IP awareness and competencies in local companies through services such as training, executive education and IP clinics. 

The enterprise engagement arm of Ipos — IP ValueLab — will also collaborate with international IP management consultancy firm EverEdge Global to reach out to more than 150 local innovative enterprises over the next three years. 

The joint effort seeks to provide intensive and customised assistance on IP strategy, management and commercialisation. 

A new, self-help business portal will provide access to a repository of IP business guides and diagnostic toolkits, Ipos said.