Anthill Ventures, an investment and speed-scaling platform for early growth-stage startups has launched A-Scale, an Asian market access programme for healthtech, mediatech and urbantech startups based in Singapore. It is supported by Enterprise Singapore, the government agency responsible for developing enterprises and fostering Singapore’s startup ecosystem. Under the Enterprise Singapore Startup SG Accelerator programme, Anthill will receive funding support and access to potential startups and ecosystem players in Singapore.
A-Scale is an intensive, six-month speed-scaling programme targeted to benefit 18 startups every year. The startups eligible for the program will be global growth-stage startups with disruptive technologies that challenge traditional business models and that are interested in entering Asian markets.
According to the selection criteria for the program companies should be early growth-stage startups in pre-series A stage in the urban tech, media tech and health tech sector. They should have their company or subsidiary registered in Singapore. Startups that have already built a disruptive global product that is ready to be scaled in Asian markets are also eligible.
What’s in it for startups?
Startups will get access to: More than a 100 global domain and technology experts, more than 50 corporate market channels and millions of customers for use-case development. Startups stand to benefit from public sector initiatives through partner govt. sandboxes that have access to large datasets. They will be introduced to business scaling use cases and support on business model refinement, go-to-market strategy and targeted PR. Startups stand a chance to get funding of up to $1 million based on milestones, digital infrastructure support and services up to $500,000 and raise capital of up to $20M from Anthill’s co-investment syndication platform.
Prasad Vanga, Founder and CEO, Anthill Ventures, said, “We are super excited to bring our expertise in speed-scaling growth-stage technology startups into new markets in Asia, with the support of Enterprise Singapore. We are focused on solving the speed-scaling challenge that startups have during the growth phase to commercialise and customise their products to large markets like India.”
Anthill’s portfolio of startups will now benefit from synergies and market connections in SE Asia in addition to the Indian market access channels. Global startups, interested in Indian market access, which apply to A-Scale will benefit from Anthill’s existing programmes in India: Anthill Studio (for media technology ventures) and Lumos (for healthcare technology ventures).
“Both India and Southeast Asia are growing markets that offer Singapore-based startups the much-needed consumer base to scale up and grow. By becoming a Startup SG Accelerator partner, Anthill brings with its in-depth industry expertise in healthtech, urbantech and mediatech, adding to the vibrancy of our startup ecosystem. Growth-stage startups based here can leverage its strong networks in India and Southeast Asia to gain access to key ecosystem players and shorten their time to market,” Lim Seow Hui, Director of Startup Development, Enterprise Singapore said in a statement.