Australian Tech Firms Are Heading Toward Singapore Industry

A growing number of Australian tech companies are are heading toward Singapore to support their business with funding, partners, and even customers. The Australian government has been aiming to accelerate the country's access to international business networks with its programs.

Singapore has been aiming to become South-East Asia's Silicon Valley, as the government devote a huge amount of resources to achieve that. According to SkyNews, Singapore ranked seventh in 2015's Global Innovation Index. Meanwhile, Australia was in the 17th rank.

Last year, the Australian government launched its National Innovation and Science Agenda. The program is backed with an AU$1.1 billion to incentivise innovation and entrepreneurship in the region, especially in the technology sectors. The government has also recently allocated AU$11 million to establish startup landing pads initiative to help Australian entrepreneurs bring their ideas to the market and build enterprises based on the ideas.

The initiative plans to cover five startup launching pads. According to ZDNet, Silicon Valley was the first launching pad revealed by the Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy last month. The second startup launching pad is Tel Aviv, and the third is pencilled in for Shanghai. With this rate of Australian tech companies turning to Singapore for support, it's possible the city-state will eventually become one of the Australian startups landing pads.

SBS reported how Sydney-based Gemstar Technology founder Gemma Manning is taking six Australian firms on a trade mission to Singapore this week. She hopes the Australian government will choose Singapore as one of the landing pads for Australian startups. "I feel positive and more inspired by what we are doing now as a nation in terms of innovation. But, we have a long way to go and I think countries like Singapore can't be ignored when we are looking at policy and how to create these ecosystems," Ms Manning said.

Ms Manning also noted that she finds the funding environment in Singapore very attractive, as is the drive for public-private partnerships. "They want to commercialize technology to help drive their future income," she added. Ms Manning is taking the six Australian companies to look for funding through established companies ready to expand. She noted that what she's doing, along with other tech firms, is not taking business away from Australia, but rather helping them grow with the support of other countries.

More Australian tech companies are turning to Singapore to get support in funding, partners, as well as customers. With the growing number of tech startups in Australia, the government is aiming to give the companies more access to global business networks and plans to assign five landing pads internationally to support the sector.