Attracting talent 'still a hurdle for Singapore deep-tech startups'

Singapore

TALENT is key for deep-tech to take off here, and although the niche sector was in the spotlight in the startup space in Budget 2020, few here see entrepreneurship as a viable path, industry players said.

Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat on Tuesday announced that the government will set aside an additional S$300 million under its Startup SG Equity co-investment scheme to give deep-tech startups "better access to capital, expertise and industry networks".

The scheme, run by SEEDS Capital and SGInnovate, is expected to spur over S$800 million in private funding over the next 10 years, he said.

The additional injection of funds and focus on deep-tech startups raised a buzz among industry players in Singapore, but some of them told The Business Times that talent shortages in the industry pose a big problem.

In all deep-tech fields - including emerging technology areas such as medtech, advanced manufacturing and agri-food tech - startup founders and employees need to have a deep knowledge of the science in their fields of expertise. Startup founders also need to be well-versed in business and technology.

Bernadette Cho, general manager for talent investor Entrepreneur First Singapore, said Singapore has no lack of talented researchers from top institutes like Singapore's Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*Star) or NTUitive, the innovation and enterprise arm of Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

But, she added, researchers might not see entrepreneurship as an accessible and effective path right now.

She added that besides the challenging process of finding a co-founder, a fear of the free-wheeling, experimental nature of working in a startup - compared to the structured rigour of academia that they are used to - might prevent these researchers from taking the job.

Dr Tan Geok Leng of data-analytics startup AIDA Technologies agreed, saying: "There is a lot of deep talent to be found in Singapore, but researchers can be too cosy. We need a way to entice them into the deep-tech industry."

He said both "push" and "pull" techniques are needed to attract and retain talent in the deep-tech space. Push techniques send talent from research industries and universities out into the industry, while pull techniques entail showcasing success stories that show the rewarding nature of startups.

It is hard for startups to compete with academic institutions or defence-related organisations in terms of job perks, said chief executive and co-founder Rohit Jha of spacetech startup Transcelestial Technologies.

"To compensate for that, we try hiring from all over the world. The aim is not to just bring talent but commercial deep-tech capability in the ecosystem in the long run," said Mr Jha, adding that the city state's friendly employment pass policy has helped them attract talent globally.

The chief executive added that programmes by the government have helped defray talent costs, and made it more attractive for talent to join the industry. For example, A*STAR has a T-Up program where a deep-tech startup, through a secondment, can hire one to two scientists full-time for one to two years. Enterprise Singapore will cover up to 70 per cent of the salary costs.

With the S$300 million injection of funds announced on Tuesday, things might look up further.

Dr Sinuhé Arroyo, founder and chief executive of artificial intelligence startup TAIGER, said: "Deep-tech is expensive. The journey will require specialised talents, resources and equipment, which make funding necessary to sustain its growth."

Paul Santos, managing partner of early-stage deep-tech investor Wavemaker Partners, said that any support the Singapore government can provide to shorten the path to commercialisation or help founders and scientists scale globally will go a long way.

This is to ensure that the effort and money Singapore has invested in research and development, as well as in transforming our universities into research-intensive universities, can yield good returns, Dr Tan said.

The capital-intensive nature and long gestation period of deep-tech startups mean deep-tech investments are high-risk ventures.

A deep-tech startup faces all the challenges of a normal startup as well as the additional difficulty of translating cutting-edge research into something readily deployable in the industry, said Dr Tan.

"However, if this effort is successful, the upside from a deep-tech startup can be greater than a normal startup because of its inherent competitive advantage," he added.

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