Singapore's JFDI abandons accelerator program

In a blog post, JFDI CEO Hugh Mason said that he and co-founder Meng Wong decided to shut down the accelerator after observing the evolution of the global start-up ecosystem in recent years. The two felt that support for entrepreneurship has grown among political and industry leaders, particularly in Southeast Asia, to the extent that start-ups can access the same support from many other players with larger resources.

JFDI's sixth and final batch of start-ups graduated last December; it marked the first time that the program was delivered partly online, allowing start-ups based outside Singapore to participate. Also last year, e-commerce inventory management platform TradeGecko became the first JFDI alumni to reach its Series A round, receiving $6.5 million from NSI Ventures and Jungle Ventures.

Mason and Wong modeled their program on US accelerator TechStars, whose founder David Cohen had been approached by the Singapore government to set up a similar program there. Incubatees received S$15,000 ($11,700) in cash, along with working space, S$150,000 worth of mentoring and $300,000 in technical support and vendor perks.

Despite the closure of its signature program, Mason intends for JFDI to continue in some form, after adjustments to its business model to take into account the lessons learned about developing start-ups in Singapore.

"There are some fundamental challenges about running an accelerator in Singapore," he said. "We still believe it's a great place to incorporate and finance a business for a really exciting region of the world. Yet high costs, a tight market for tech talent and restricted immigration mean that a different model to what we adapted from Techstars probably would be better."

While Wong has left the firm to develop his new start-up Legalese, which helps start-up founders understand legal requirements in other regions, Mason will remain at JFDI to explore new business models, such as a program to connect start-up founders with corporations seeking partners for joint ventures.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Venture
• GPs
• Singapore
• JFDI
• seed