Secretlab plans S$50m investment in R&D, hopes to hire 100 staff in Singapore

SINGAPORE gaming-chair maker Secretlab is planning to invest S$50 million in research and development (R&D) over the next few years, and also expand its headcount by 50 per cent, the company's co-founders have said.

The investment, which will boost the company's product development and innovation capabilities, comes on top of a S$10 million upfront investment into the company's new 44,000-square feet global headquarters and R&D centre, which the company moved into in May.

Ian Ang, Secretlab's co-founder and chief executive, said: "With our scale producing a million chairs every year, even a small defect rate of 0.1 per cent means that 1,000 users will be affected. This is why we are investing this much into R&D, as well as reliability testing and certification to ensure the quality of our chairs."

At the same time, the company is looking to hire up to 100 people over the next year, Mr Ang and his co-founder Alaric Choo told reporters after hosting Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong on a tour around its new facilities along Braddell Road on Tuesday.

While they are filling new positions across the board, the duo are especially on the hunt for engineers and designers, such as mechanical engineers and industrial designers who specialise in colour materials and finishes. These 80 new positions will more than double its product team, now at 30 strong.

"Every team right now is extremely stretched. We've seen massive growth in the past few years," said Mr Choo, who is also chief strategy officer.

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It is almost a happy problem for the company, which started out serving a relatively niche market six years ago, but quickly gained a cult following. In 2019, Temasek-owned Heliconia Capital Management's minority-stake investment reportedly brought Secretlab's overall valuation to over S$200 million.

The Covid-19 pandemic, which forced millions around the world to work from home, further propelled the company into the mainstream. Remote workers, tired of working from their dining table, snapped up these chairs, which cost at least S$549. The company now ships about 10,000 chairs a week to more than 60 countries.

Its largest markets are now the United States and the euro zone, with Singapore accounting for only 5 per cent of all sales.

Even so, the company, which proclaims itself "very proudly Singaporean" - 90 per cent of its employees are Singaporean - has no plans to set up offices in those markets. It is instead planning an office in China, where its chairs are manufactured, Mr Choo said.

Asked how it plans to ramp up hiring so quickly, Mr Choo said most of the roles are in Singapore, and the company is in talks with several universities to come up with a programme which identifies and recruits the best students early.

Mr Ang said: "There's no international gaming chair brand to hire from, so a lot of the guys, we've had to train them, to give them our direction, our ideas, our philosophies, and they're talented enough to turn that into reality themselves."

While the pandemic has brought roaring business to the company, it has also wreaked havoc on supply chains, creating a "logistical nightmare". Mr Choo said getting round the disruptions has been an "extremely costly" endeavour that has required "a lot of creative thinking".

He said: "One is shortage of materials, having to airfreight them in batches, as opposed to having the full amount, and then producing batches as well. So you need to be quite ad hoc with all the solutions." He added that waiting for things to be perfect would simply put a stop to production.

Mr Ang added that the team is "very good at not being cookie-cutter", taking what comes in their stride, given that "random things happen all the time", such as the Suez Canal blockage in March. Nonetheless, the incident caused panic for the operations team because the company had many shipments to Europe, he said.

That was where the customer service team stepped in. Mr Choo said they had to be "very clever" about the way they handled the situation, including shifting available stock around to placate aggravated customers.

"That's the reason why, for us, customer service is very important as well, and that's why we need to have it here. If you outsource it, it's going to be a lot worse - people won't care about the customer," he said.

Wrapping up his visit to Secretlab, Mr Gan told reporters that businesses will always face challenges and that it is important for companies to be responsive and prepared to change.

Noting that focusing on innovation has served Secretlab well, Mr Gan said: "Innovation is a key strategy for local companies to continue to remain relevant and to continue to grow and become global."