The 4th quarter 2022 overview of Singapore’s tech, startup and VC news headlines, gathered from online media coverage in October, November and December of 2022.
Singapore’s tech news in the 4th quarter of 2022 covered items including developments with the digital Singapore dollar, blockchain-based cross-border financial settlements, NFT-backed music festivals, and more. Hit the headline links below to read each article in full, online.
December 2022 | November 2022 | October 2022
December 2022: Singapore
Singapore: National Artificial Intelligence Strategy
- A look at the difficulties faced by Singapore’s free Mindline at Work AI therapy-bot, an attempt to relieve pandemic stress for teachers
- Singapore’s Haulio digital haulier announces first overseas acquisition with controlling stake taken in Indonesia’s Logol, a logistics-focused platform
- Mark your calendar: Blockchain Fest Singapore 2023 is set for February 16-17, discussing all things decentralized
- Singapore: Infocomm Media Development Authority to launch Sg$5M fund to help local media firms use ‘virtual production’ tech similar to that used to produce Dune, Black Adam and others
- Singapore: Plugo secures $9M Series A funding with full-spectrum e-commerce services for direct-to-consumer brands, from website creation, payments set-up and marketing management to shipping, warehousing and logistics
Lowy Institute: Asia Power Index, 2023 edition
November 2022: Singapore
Singapore: Blockchain Fest – February 2023
- Asia’s tech news weekly, Nov 1st: NFTs as property in Singapore; Australia’s hacking woes continue; Taiwan’s battery-swapping in India; rice decarbonisation in Asia; Huawei faces Ireland ban; Korean VC looks to Vietnam; Vanuatu takes cashless steps…
- GrabPay and StraitsX are set to test ‘purpose-bound’ digital Singapore dollars, enabling senders to dictate conditions for the use of their digital SGD
- Singapore: Digital and Intelligence Service now formally inaugurated, providing a 4th military branch alongside army, air force and navy, unifying cyber and command, control, comm’s, computers and intelligence
- Singapore Deep-Tech Alliance partners gov’t Enterprise Singapore to be part of the agency’s Startup SG Accelerator programme, aiming to bring nascent technologies to market more quickly
- Monetary Authority of Singapore launches Ubin+, an expanded collaboration with international partners on cross-border foreign exchange settlement using wholesale central bank digital currency
“MAS is participating in SWIFT’s CBDC Sandbox, together with more than 17 central banks and global commercial banks, to explore cross-border interoperability across digital currencies based on DLT and non-DLT payment systems.”
- Singapore’s DBS and global partners including Google and The World Bank launch 2nd edition of Sustaintech Xcelerator, a 6-month climate-focused accelerator program
- Singapore’s AnyMind Group, end-to-end commerce enablement firm, approved by Tokyo Stock Exchange for listing of the Company’s shares
- Singapore’s DBS completes fixed-income trade on Onyx, JPMorgan’s blockchain platform which allows investors to lend for a period of hours without assets leaving their balance sheets
- An intro to Singapore National Parks Board’s trees management using digital twin tech, capturing LiDAR point clouds and then applying AI to geolocate each plant
“NParks then applies finite element models to the digital twin to assist the team in examining the overall tree stability under different weather conditions (Singapore experiences fierce tropical storms), considering factors like tree architecture, wood strength and root space.”
- At the recent Singapore International Cyber Week 2022, women leaders in cyber discussed the challenges and triumphs of women in the industry, and what they are doing to bridge the gender gap
- Thailand: Siam Commercial Bank’s SCB 10X invests $10M in Singapore’s digital asset custodian, RakkaR Digital
- Indonesia Stock Exchange inks MOU with Singapore’s Metaverse Green Exchange for IDX emissions trading scheme, launching in 2025, with MVGX to build blockchain-based carbon registry and exchange
- South Korea: TheVentures Singapore venture-building firm preps for launch, aiming to replicate success of Korea-based early-stage startup incubator and VC
Singapore: Blockchain Fest – February 2023
October 2022: Singapore
Singapore: Cryptocurrency Index 2022 (pdf download)
- Singapore: Monetary Authority to inject seed capital into Asia Climate Solutions Design Grant to fund ‘blended finance’ innovations towards sustainable development
- Singapore’s Hype Records partners Spartan Labs for NFT-enabled music festivals, looking to blockchain tech for more fan engagement, beat fake ticket scams, and release 600 NFTs
- Singapore: klikit food delivery software startup raises $2M pre-seed with software-as-a-service cloud platform, aggregating and analysing a restaurant’s food delivery orders on a single mobile device
- Singapore: Gomu raises $5M with white-label platform providing NFT communities with hubs, marketplaces and token-gated communities without requiring experience with blockchain tech
- Singapore: Pillow cryptocurrency investment platform secures $18M Series A, looking to build on emerging markets focus and existing offerings in Nigeria, Ghana, Vietnam and others
Singapore e-conomy report 2022 (pdf) / Google, Bain, Temasek
- Singapore and a 4-day work week: “…governments of Spain, United Arab Emirates, and…Japan have truncated their work weeks in a bid to improve work-life balance and productivity.”
- PropertyGuru online real estate portal acquires Singapore’s Sendhelper, adding home services including cleaning, maintenance and repair to services portfolio
- A brief intro to 5 startups from the F10 & K-Startup Center Singapore Program, working in maritime propulsion, insect farming, user authentication and more
- Singapore Fintech Association partners Banks Foundation for Young Entrepreneurs to create 80RR, a co-working space for Korean companies in Singapore
- Available to download: The BNPL Code of Conduct for Singapore, covering buy-now-pay-later firms
- Singapore: High Court Justice rules that NFTs meet certain legal requirements to be considered property
- Singapore: Possible ban looms on credit lines used to fund cryptocurrency purchases as Singapore takes another step to rein in the digital assets sector
- Singapore: Monetary Authority published 2 papers proposing regulatory measures to reduce risk of consumer harm from crypto trading, and to support development of stablecoins as a credible medium of digital asset exchange
- Philippines: Digital Pilipinas inks MOU with Singapore’s Affinidi decentralised ID solutions provider around open standard ‘verifiable credentials’ for use in workforce-focused digital upskilling
- An overview of the Korea Tourism Organization’s Korean Startup Showcase 2022 Singapore StartTour, and the 11 startups taking part
Credit Suisse Research: The global effects of Asia’s aging population
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