SBR 20 Hottest Startups Panel Briefing 2018 welcomed over 150 delegates

Leading startup founders converged at the event.

Singapore Business Review successfully closed its 20 Hottest Startups Panel Briefing with a jam-packed event at Suntec Singapore on August 29 that gathered over 150 delegates.

Now on its sixth year, the event has brought together the biggest names in the startup industry to discuss latest developments, trends and best practices for homegrown startups seeking to conquer the global stage.

Ned Phillips of Bambu; Hari Sivan of soCash; Dmitry Voronenko of Turnkey Lender and Dr Ser Wah Oh of Whizpace discussed the growing saturation of the Singapore startup ecosystem.

In a related discussion, the lack of gazelles or disruptive startups with strong growth trajectories was tackled by Chee Tung Leong of EngageRocket; Atul Garg of SingX; Yoan Kamalski of Hmlet; Rhonda Wong of Ohmyhome; Alexia Sichere of Try & Review and Elena Ionenko of Turnkey Lender.

Meanwhile, the evolving role of accelerator programmes in the startup ecosystem was examined by Michelle Woo of Oracle Startup Ecosystem, Singapore; Elise Tan of Entrepreneur First; Kineret Karin of ImpacTech and Kumaran Pillai of Apple Seed Venture Accelerator.

The lack of later-stage funding was discussed by Ashley Kee of Bandboo; Kiren Tanna of ZEN Rooms; Prajit Nanu of InstaREM; Anshul Gupta of TabSquare and Nejla Matam-Finn of The Fifth Collection.

The discussion on funding was extended by insights from a panel graced by venture capitalists including Jeremy Berger of Life.SREDA; Bernard Shum of IncuVest; Rika Purnamasari of Quest Ventures; Michele Daoud of Monk’s Hilll Ventures and Yash Sankrityayan of Jungle Ventures.

Against a growing number of startups turning to digital token sales to generate capital, Dimitri Kouchnirenko of Incomlend; Damien Cummings of Peoplewave; Michele Ferrario of StashAway; Clemen Chiang of Spiking and Gaurang Torkevar of Indorse shared their insights on initial coin offerings as another viable startup funding method.

The Hottest Startups Panel Briefing is an annual half-day event organised by Singapore Business Review which gathers the biggest names in the local startup scene. Past speakers include Grab, Zalora and Guava Pass. Photos from the event can be viewed here.

Interested speakers and sponsors for the event in 2019 may contact Andrea Pascual at [email protected] or at +65 3158 1386 ext 212. Startups may reach out to [email protected] for editorial opportunities.