During the ASEAN-Russian summit held earlier this month in Singapore, Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Skolkovo Foundation and the Russian sovereign fund RDIF.
A state-backed organization aiming to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation in Singapore, ACE is thus becoming “a trusted partner for Skolkovo resident companies,” said Yury Saprykin, vice president for international and regional policy at the Skolkovo Foundation.
The MoU foresees the opening of a Skolkovo office in Singapore and “the ability to scale-up plans in the southeast Asian region to develop startup ecosystems in the two countries,” as reported by the Skolkovo Foundation.
Meanwhile, the RDIF and its partners will be “potential investors in the most attractive projects and startups.”
No fewer than 20 Skolkovo companies were featured in the ASEAN-Russian summit. These companies included Group-IB, a cybersecurity company that announced this week the opening of a new global office in Singapore – following the example of Kaspersky Lab three years ago – and VisionLabs, which has developed a face recognition technology.
Alexander Khanin (left), CEO of Skolkovo resident company VisionLabs, demonstrates his company’s face recognition technology to Putin (right) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (centre). Photo credit: Sk.ru
Skolkovo’s interest in Singapore is not new. In 2015, as reported by East-West Digital News, the Russian tech hub took an active part in the Echelon Asia Summit. Skolkovo signed a partnership agreement with hardware startup accelerator HaxAsia. The Skolkovo delegation also held meetings with Singapore’s first business accelerator JFDI, while a partnership with ACE was already considered at that time.
In 2017, Singapore was the official partner country of the Open Innovations forum, a major annual tech event co-organized by Skolkovo. That same year, several Russian startups were featured at Slush Singapore with support from RVC, another Russian institution supporting innovation.
