Temasek Holdings, 2 SG universities to invest $75m for deep tech ventures

The three organisations inked a deal to speed up the commercialisation of deep tech ventures.

A joint $75m pilot programme will accelerate the launching of successful deep-tech start-ups from the pipeline of research at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

In a joint statement, NTU, NUS, and Temasek announced they signed the deal for investment, which also seeks to develop an Intellectual Property (IP) licensing framework, that will speed up the licensing and translation of university technologies for spin-off companies.

By doing this deal, the process will be shortened to a month from five months. Temasek will invest $65m, "mostly through Xora Innovation (Xora), an early-stage deep tech investing platform of Temasek, into the deep tech start-ups while NTU and NUS will each invest S$5 million in this effort."

Also under the deal, Temasek and Xora will work with NTU and NUS to launch and build globally-competitive ventures with strong potential to address large global market opportunities in areas such as Energy Transition, Biotechnology, and the Future of Compute and Cognition.

Meanwhile, NTU and NUS will also develop a unified online platform to provide potential licensors with a one-stop-shop where they can identify and select IPs from both universities that align with their business requirements.