The iSTART:ACE (Accelerate & Catalyse Entrepreneurship) programme is a pilot grant scheme that aims to encourage and assist Singapore-based start-ups to accelerate technology commercialisation and catalyse go-to-market activities by leveraging internationally proven technologies. iSTART:ACE focuses on enhancing start-up business viability by leveraging established technology to overcome the valley-of-death phase that start-ups face.

Through the programme, we hope to seed a bigger pool of successful start-ups that are both innovative and commercially viable not just in Singapore, but in the region as well.

IDA has issued a competitive Call-for-Proposal (CFP) in December 2010 and is now issuing the second CFP. To be eligible, the applicant company must:

• Be incorporated and physically present in Singapore with at least 30% local ownership
• Have no more than 25 employees
• Be registered for less than 5 years at time of application 
• Be founded by either serial entrepreneurs or experienced infocomm professionals
• Comprise a team with strong business and technical expertise
• Involve internationally proven technologies from foreign companies with good track record overseas or reputable universities, research institutions and such
• Provide a business plan with clear target markets, viable business models and go-to-market strategies
  

A panel of experts will evaluate the proposals to determine the winners. The proposals will be evaluated based on:

• Size of the target markets
• Innovativeness of the business 
• Business viability 
• Strength of the international technology and exclusivity (whether time-exclusive, region-exclusive or vertical-exclusive, etc.) 
• Strength of founding entrepreneurs and proposed team
• Significance of the scope of development work on top of the international technology
• Impact of the proposed project to Singapore

For the winners, IDA will co-fund up to 50% of salaries of qualified manpower for up to 1 year. The maximum grant amount to each company will be capped at S$250,000.

For this CFP, interested founders must indicate an expression of interest by submitting an executive summary by 30 September 2011. The executive summary should briefly cover the listed eligibility and evaluation criteria.

An industry briefing was held on 1 September 2011 11am at IDA's office. You can download the presentation slides here.

For all enquiries and submissions, you can also e-mail ida_startup@ida.gov.sg.