Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) has recruited more venture capitalist firms to its accelerator PIER71 increasing its financial firepower.
The four companies joining the PIER71 Venture Capitalist Network are Narwhale Ventures, Tradeworks.vc, Kibo Invest, and Paragon Ventures.
This brings the total number of venture capitalists in the network to 12 and adds a further SGD 6m ($4.5m) in funds to support promising maritime start-ups.
The eight existing VC partners include Bernhard Schulte INNOPORT, IMC Ventures, Motion Ventures, MOL Plus, PACC Offshore Services Holdings (POSH) & Pacific Carriers Limited (PCL) managed by KSL Maritime Ventures, PSA unboXed and TNB Aura fund.
Kibo Invest is a Singapore-based private investment office that aims to achieve risk-adjusted returns through a selective due diligence process.
The company said it is currently developing a strong emphasis on climate technology to contribute towards a sustainable future.
Narwhale Ventures funds pre-seed to series A blue economy start-ups based on “decarbonisation, digitalisation and health consumption”.
Paragon Ventures describes itself as an early-stage, sector agnostic venture capital fund, while Tradeworks.VC is a pure play logistics technology venture capital firm with nine startup investments since 2021.
Tradeworks.VC has already invested in at least one maritime start-up in the city state joining the Marina Hadjipateras-backed venture capital firm TMV in a funding round for Singapore-headquartered ShipsKart which raised $2.7m in Series A funding.
PIER71 is a strategic collaboration between the MPA and the National University of Singapore (NUS), through its entrepreneurial arm, NUS Enterprise.
News of the addition of new venture capitalist firms came as PIER71 launched its latest Smart Port Challenge (SPC) 2023.
SPC is an annual innovation competition to find the “best ideas and solutions” from technology start-ups to address challenges and innovation opportunities, put forth by the maritime industry.
The challenges at this year’s event span key areas such as maritime decarbonisation, smart port operations and supply chain resilience.
Technology start-ups based in Singapore as well as those based overseas are invited to submit their proposals by 31 July 2023.
Shortlisted start-ups will be mentored by 21 maritime companies under the PIER71 Accelerate programme and may be eligible for an MPA start-up grant of up to SGD 100,000.
The top three winners for SPC 2023 will be awarded cash prizes at the grand finals in November 2023.
The PIER71 programme has supported over 100 start-ups, and these start-ups have raised over SGD 50m in venture capital and MPA grant funding since the programme’s inception.
