Singapore Expats

note, NEW start up..
all loans i've came acrosss needs me to provide 2yrs of income tax...
i've started a new company, wonder where can i get loans?

ever tried government funding like SPRING? micro loan?

yes, they need 2years income tax....

EDB runs a program to refund costs of pilot projects which are innovative. Also NUS, NTU etc run a program to match capital put in by founder upto 50k SGD.

pennant wrote:note, NEW start up..
all loans i've came acrosss needs me to provide 2yrs of income tax...
i've started a new company, wonder where can i get loans?

Just to check is your company is PTe Ltd?Tks

Your top choice will be...

1. Family/Friends
2. Angel investors.

As much as SPRING or most fundings are concerned, their definition of "Startups" and ours differ. I have never heard of any company that is under 2 years old that actually secured fundings from SPRING. Maybe there are a very tiny fraction around. With the network forged between the VCs, Banks and SPRING, the options available to Startups are being monopolized. (Which is why I often ridicule the proclaimed "enterprise-spirit" here in Singapore)

You didn't state your nature of business. Singapore is bitten by the technology bug and obviously didn't learn from the dot-com bubble. If you're in the service industry and such, be prepared for 5 times to 10 times the hardship when trying to secure funds.

Most funds available these days are only applicable to IT infrastructure.

E-T wrote:Your top choice will be...

1. Family/Friends
2. Angel investors.

As much as SPRING or most fundings are concerned, their definition of "Startups" and ours differ. I have never heard of any company that is under 2 years old that actually secured fundings from SPRING. Maybe there are a very tiny fraction around. With the network forged between the VCs, Banks and SPRING, the options available to Startups are being monopolized. (Which is why I often ridicule the proclaimed "enterprise-spirit" here in Singapore)

You didn't state your nature of business. Singapore is bitten by the technology bug and obviously didn't learn from the dot-com bubble. If you're in the service industry and such, be prepared for 5 times to 10 times the hardship when trying to secure funds.

Most funds available these days are only applicable to IT infrastructure.

Actually a little off key here, for spring funding, you probably need to fall into the manufacturing industry rather than service, orientated, it more likely to be a case of development technology businesses, of bio-chem, or another field, that will quickly expand under the supervision of a business development planner, who would normally evaluate your idea's from risk assessment.

I believe spring really doesn't entertain one man bands, they are there for significant start up of industry or ventures from other Countries, that will contribute quickly to the Country, probably with a loan period of 3 to 5 years, which is then paid back...

Its very much the same as in other Countries, there are no free launches, though, which many also believe in Europe, when grants are dished out, it's not grant money directly for them, but grant money to pay the business consultant, to give the company free advice, so it's kind of indirect help.

Really you need an experienced person to submit an application for funding, there are procedures to follow, and if anything is missing, it just gets binned. It's like the business plans fro the entre pass, if the procedure is not correct, no pass.

So people needing funding need to get a hold of the people, with experience of applying, they normally include their fee, in the application for the funding..like the business advisors at spring, if they see you haven't a chance, they will tell you, and that's probably because your criteria doesn't qualify more than anything, a business with two years accounts is not a start up, by the way! and would also not qualify, normally the application must be applied for before the business starts in other Countries. I would think its the same here, but not 100%

They are also looking for something tangible, its a matter of grabbing your assets, or minimising risk, unfortunately! And they like to see you, meet at least half the costs too, after all why should they risk their money! It's all about feasibility and even an angel investor, will be looking at ROI and risk factors.

Many business ideas and startups, fail at the first hurdle, due to a lack of in depth research and evaluation of strengths & weaknesses in the market place, although cash flow is probably the biggest hurdle of all.

Another option with Spring & your local banks is the Micro-loan from Spring. I've used this option with 5 different companies now over the past couple of years.

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Another option with Spring & your local banks is the Micro-loan from Spring. I've used this option with 5 different companies now over the past couple of years.

Curious as to your experience with this SMS. The qualifying criteria on the Spring site sound rather straight forward if a little vague. At the banks though, the same old "you need to show x years of accounts, etc etc" comes up. Is it your long service award ang moh charm or have people simply been running into idiots?

KSL,

You've sorta sum up my sentiments here. In a way, SPRING is indeed not supportive of Startups and was never interested in Startups in the first place. Like you mentioned, a company with two years accounts is definitely not a Startup anymore. If a company is making good profit (assumingly) for two years, they probably will be looking elsewhere for expansion or second-round fundings. That's in one aspect, SPRING should remove the notion of "helping Startups". Even among some angel investors, they know it's facade and rather not be a part of it. They are better off with offshore groups.

I think what turns a lot of business ideas off, is the inflexibility when determining "sustainability" and "profitability". That's one thing I really hope to see a change. The factor of success actually goes beyond IPOs and acquisitions, as commonly benchmarked by investors. There's no free lunch, you're right.

Probably not the best examples as most were with established companies or businesses that had a track record as as business before becoming Pte Ltd. so I would say under the circumstances it would be a bit dodgy as these were known businesses before they were companies. The business track records were used even though the loans were to the Pte ltd Companies. There is/was also I believe at that time a $50K cap but I don't know if that's changed. It's been ~3+ years since we had the last one.

So probably wouldn't do for a new start-up from scratch. Was a thought though.

There's another option of buying over shelved entities actually, which will remove that 2 years restriction if it's been operating on a small scale basis. I am always wary of reputation though, it's never an option for me. Not now at least.