"US-based company Eventbrite is officially heading to Asia, and it's choosing Singapore as its first stop. Singapore has already used Eventbrite for over 90,000 events, with payments made possible through PayPay. It'll now add official support and localised payment as part of the launch. Content will also be curated for local events as well as local marketing content. The country was chosen after Eventbrite saw strong organic growth in Singapore, having processed five million

"FRENCH energy giant Engie has launched a strategic venture arm eyeing energy startups in Asia-Pacific, hoping to provide them with access to industry expertise and funding. The venture arm, Engie Factory Asia-Pacific, will focus on the areas of green mobility, smart cities, energy efficiency and renewable energy, according to its website. Aside from investing in startups, Engie Factory aims to help them develop practical solutions, test-bed the solutions in actual projects,

"Technology giant Google launched a developer space on Friday (Feb 22) at its Singapore headquarters that will allow developers, entrepreneurs and community groups to network, train and grow their expertise. The Developer Space @ Google will amplify its efforts to boost digital capabilities, the Government said. Google's decision to set up such a space in Singapore is ideal to growing the nation's digital ecosystem, said Communications and Information Minister S Iswaran who w

Singapore has such a dynamic ecosystem that sometimes the number of events offered can be overwhelming. Here at FirstCOUNSEL, we're going to help you out by putting together a curated list of upcoming events in Singapore for start-ups, SMEs and entrepreneurs: Feb 22 - Networking lunch with TRIVE labs (JustCo UIC Building) Free Feb 27 - Startup Playbook: Want to expand into China? (Found8 Prinsep) Free Feb 26 - New Partnership Model for the Digital Age (Found8 Amoy) Free Feb

"The Singapore government will set aside $74 million (S$100 million) for investments in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under its SME Co-Investment Fund III, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced on Monday. Delivering the city-state’s budget for 2019, the minister said the fund will co-invest in startups to help them scale and internationalise. Temasek Holdings will be a co-investor in the fund, which will be managed by Heliconia Capital Management. Qualifying c

"ENTERPRISE Singapore will launch a Scale-up SG programme that partners both the private and public sectors to help startups and smaller companies scale up, said Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat on Monday. The programme will pave the way for work with 'aspiring, high-growth local firms' to identify and build new capabilities to innovate, and expand into international markets. 'Startups can only thrive if they scale up, and venture into new markets. We will provide support

"SINGAPORE'S prospects as a fund management hub look stronger than ever. A number of recent international developments have contributed to this. Global investors are concerned about uncertainties arising from the US-China trade war, protectionism, Brexit, the Italian budget and a sluggish growth outlook for the eurozone... Against the backdrop of these uncertainties, global investors and funds are increasingly focused on Asia and they find immense comfort in Singapore as a re

Singapore is the 6th top tech hotspot in the world, according to a new study by real estate firm Savills. The Savills Tech Cities index measures 30 global cities on 100 metrics related to the city's business environment, cost of doing business, tech infrastructure, venture capital availability, talent pool, real estate prices and quality of mobility. To read more, click here. To start/scale your company in Singapore, contact us today!

"The Singapore Management University (SMU) and Alibaba Cloud launched a series of courses to upskill more than 1,000 working professionals in Singapore. The ‘SMU-Alibaba Series’ professional continuing education programme will be offered at the SMU Academy, the professional training arm of SMU, from March 2019. Bringing workers up to speed on emerging technologies The courses are designed to specifically to empower SMEs. It aims to equip businesses with the right competencies

BY AW CHENG WEI, THE STRAITS TIMES "When Malaysian Kelvin Teo and Indonesian Reynold Wijaya set up crowd-investing website Funding Societies in 2015 in Singapore, both were not on the island."My co-founder and I incorporated the company and built a team (of five) here, via the Internet and video calls, without being physically in Singapore," Mr Teo, a Singapore permanent resident, told The Straits Times. The ease of setting up a company in Singapore and its clear legislations