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The vibrant community of diverse startups, incubators, venture capitalists and ecosystem partners within LaunchPad offers opportunities for knowledge-sharing and collaboration. LaunchPad has played host to startups which have generated more than S$400 million in total startup revenue.
There are over 40 incubators and accelerators of varied backgrounds that are running structured incubation programmes at the two LaunchPads. The terms accelerator and incubator might seem like they have the same meaning: to help start-ups grow. They often used interchangeably but differ a lot from one another. While one helps established businesses grow quickly, the other helps to flesh out the details when starting a new business.
Incubators help entrepreneurs develop their ideas into a business model and usually don’t provide any funding to the startups. Incubators, such as NTUitive and ACE.SG, are usually non-profit run by academic or government institutions. Accelerators, like Quest Ventures, help developing start-ups speed up growth by providing structured guidance, professional mentorship and access to capital.
Embracing a state of constant learning
Quest Ventures has been at LaunchPad for more than a decade, and at one point, was the largest private sector tenant with 15 units for the various startups they were working with. “Today, we occupy Singapore’s luckiest office at Blk 71, #03-14 – it was our first office and the birthplace of many unicorns,” said Mr James Tan, Managing Partner of Quest Ventures.
Quest Ventures has backed more than 100 companies, three companies stand out – Carousell, Shopback, and Xfers – and they are all at LaunchPad. “They have strong founders, humble despite their successes, and continue to grow at incredible paces,” added James.
Since 2011, Quest Ventures has focused on an overarching digital economy strategy in Asia. Basic technology buildout such as ecommerce, payments, logistics needed to invested in and implemented. “Everything that we take for granted now, but without which today’s new disruptive technologies or business models would have greater difficulties taking off,” said James.
Always leading the industry, in 2018, Quest Ventures was the first venture capital firm in Southeast Asia to embrace Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles. Quest Ventures has started four funds in the last four years, and this includes the Metaverse Fund which advances ideas in Web 3.0 and backs entrepreneurs to take the state of the internet to the next level. The fund focuses on cutting-edge technologies that will underpin the new generation of internet. According to James, the startup world evolves, it does not stand still. New ideas and possibilities keep the staff in a state of constant learning that is exciting for Quest Ventures.
