WASHINGTON – United States Highway 101, a 2,400km road running along the Pacific coast, is popular with locals and tourists who enjoy the glimpses it offers of charming beach towns and the state’s famed surf culture.

But it gives some Singaporeans driving down the iconic highway in California an additional thrill – the sight of a corporate office.

“I often get texted by Singaporeans. They go: ‘Hey, we saw your company on 101,’” said Dr Tan Min-Han, the founder of Lucence, a Singapore start-up headquartered in Palo Alto.

It sprang into the limelight in 2023 when it became the first and only Asian healthcare company to have its cancer detection tests approved for use in the American national medical insurance programme.

The messages feel like vindication to Dr Tan, who is also the medical director of the firm that set up shop in Silicon Valley in 2020.

“This happened because we were able to develop great technology out of Singapore,” he said, pointing out that there was more to celebrate than the fact that his firm had cracked a highly competitive market.

“This is not just about Singapore being a receiver; of multinational companies coming to Singapore and building manufacturing plants.

“This is very much about Singapore-invented technology globalising. Helping cancer patients everywhere, detecting cancer earlier and achieving better survival,” Dr Tan told The Straits Times in an interview from Beijing where he was travelling for business.

Lucence developed and commercialised its cancer diagnostic testing services in Singapore and Hong Kong before bringing them to the US in 2020. 

Next, Dr Tan wants to offer blood tests that can detect as many as 50 cancers, from the 10 that the company can detect now.

Expansion is the name of the game when it comes to Singapore firms operating in the United States. 

Some 200 Singapore companies have a presence in the US, across sectors like healthcare, fintech, consumer tech, manufacturing, food services and retail. Something even bigger might be in motion.

Over the last five years, there has been a 23 per cent increase in Singapore companies exploring or entering the US market, according to Enterprise Singapore, the government agency which helps Singapore Inc’s overseas forays.

They are looking to break into fields like advanced manufacturing, clean energy, transportation and logistics, EnterpriseSG chief executive Lee Chuan Teck said in a speech in San Francisco in November, when the agency opened its third office in the US, after Los Angeles and New York. 

The timing seems spot on. The US economy is the only major economy to have recovered its pre-Covid-19 growth trajectory.

And early indications are that the world’s biggest economy may continue its strong streak without a break. The US may be able to avoid a recession in 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s projections, which came after the Federal Reserve said it may cut interest rates in the coming months, raising hopes for businesses looking to finance their growth plans.

Calling Singaporeans

Ambition is not in short supply at Workstream, whose founder Desmond Lim is looking for more Singaporeans to join his six-year-old start-up in Silicon Valley.

The firm’s software can automate tasks such as hiring, onboarding, payroll and employee engagement at firms with an hourly workforce. It is used by large companies which are household names including McDonald’s, Subway, Dunkin Donuts, Marriott Hotel and UPS.

Mr Lim has set his sights higher, eyeing around 60 per cent of workers, or 2.7 billion people in the world, who are “deskless” employees, such as wait staff and construction workers, who cannot work remotely and are paid per hour. 

Currently, it employs around 300 people, 60 per cent of whom are based in San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Vancouver. It also has hubs in Singapore and Manila. 

“We are trying to hire more engineers from Singapore who we can bring to the US,” he said.

Speaking to ST from Atlanta where he was travelling for work, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate said his earliest employees were friends from his secondary school who now work at his firm’s US office.

“We look for the best talent, wherever they are from – China, India, Singapore.

“There’s always a lot of really great talent from Singapore. And it’s a good fit for the company and its culture. They know the US culture and it is easier to get a visa for them,” he said. The H-1B1 programme, available only to citizens of Singapore and Chile, provides easier access to work visas in the US. 

“In particular, we hired a number of interns from the NUS Overseas Colleges programme, and these interns were crucial for our growth and success,” Mr Lim said.

Dr Tan said he appreciates the Singaporean talent for fastidiousness, recalling the time he sent three Singaporeans to set up the Lucence lab in the US in 2020.

“There were raging wildfires in California at the time, the sky was orange, there was Covid-19 and the supply chains were impossible,” he said.

“Getting lab equipment and consumables was a huge pain. But they persevered, in classic Singapore fashion, making sure that things were done properly with the right processes.

“I’m very proud that they were able to get through all that and succeed in their mission of setting up the accredited lab.”

Dr Tan, who employs 80 people across Lucence’s four offices in Singapore, the US, Hong Kong and China, is buoyant after successfully raising US$45 million (S$60 million) in Series A extension funding recently.

“The US lays out a good road map for innovation to succeed. I hope we are the first of many Singapore companies to succeed.”

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong remarked on the impact that Singaporeans were making in Silicon Valley during his November trip to San Francisco to attend the Apec leaders’ summit.

“Some are working for tech companies or other American companies; that is not too surprising. What is particularly encouraging is that there are also Singaporeans here who are doing start-ups,” PM Lee said. 

“Some of them, they started their company here, and went back to Singapore and they started a branch, and they are recruiting in Singapore and bringing the people here to work. 

“So that is one way to do it – to go out to the world and do business where the world is.”

There is a Singapore presence in about 80 per cent of the 50 American states, said Mr Clarence Hoe, executive director for Americas and Europe at EnterpriseSG.

Aside from the start-ups, several large Singapore players, like ST Engineering, Venture Corp, PSA, semiconductor equipment maker AEM Holdings, Seatrium and Olam, are also active in the US.

Some, like ST Engineering and Singtel, have also set up their own corporate venture capital arms in the US to invest in start-ups.

Singapore and the US are a good fit, Mr Hoe said in an e-mail interview. “The US has traditionally been attractive for enterprises in sectors like manufacturing, real estate and consumer/lifestyle, due to its sheer market size and concentration of large corporates with manufacturing and supply chain needs. 

“Singapore has strengths in this area as well as being a manufacturing hub in its own right.”

But new avenues are also opening up. Mr Hoe said: “The growing emphasis on health and wellness is driving demand for more innovative healthcare solutions in telemedicine, diagnostics and precision medicine.”

Speaking of large business trends, he said climate change concerns are pushing projects in offshore wind, solar, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and electric vehicles. The digitalisation drive across manufacturing, finance and transport leads to greater adoption of Internet of Things, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, which plays to Singapore’s strengths, he said.

Singapore’s exports of advanced manufacturing products to the US grew by close to 8 per cent per annum from 2018 to 2022.

And with the US encouraging home-grown manufacturing to shore up its economy, there is an opportunity there for Singapore firms in Industry 4.0, robotics and automation, Mr Hoe said.

In 2023, EnterpriseSG led delegations of companies from sectors like semiconductor, space tech, and lifestyle to cities in the US like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston and New York City.

The Singapore diaspora edge

A key factor helping Singaporean firms to succeed in the US is the diaspora, said Associate Professor Benjamin Tee, associate vice-president at NUS Enterprise.

“The diaspora adds significant value in terms of the intellectual capability and also the people network they have built in a large, deep and mature economic ecosystem like the US,” said Prof Tee, who leads the Ecosystem Development pillar of NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of NUS, which has nurtured close to 3,000 start-ups and created 11 unicorns.

Tech start-ups now contribute 2.4 per cent of Singapore’s gross domestic product, according to a PWC report in 2022, while accounting for 0.57 per cent of the employed population.

A technopreneur in his own right, Prof Tee also leads Sensors.AI Labs that is working on developing new skin-like electronic materials with applications in advanced robotics and healthcare technologies.

“If we can somehow reconnect and engage our own diaspora which has built up its own expertise and networks, it need not be seen as a brain drain,” he said.

In fact, having an “easy exchange of ideas and capital” is essential for Singapore to grow, he added.

“With the emergence of technologies like AI, that could be a significant disruptor or a builder of new economies, our diaspora contributes back. I see entrepreneurs coming back to Singapore or growing their companies in Singapore and extending to the US.”

NUS Enterprise seeds the process, sending its students on internships at Silicon Valley companies through its various programmes aimed at inculcating entrepreneurship.

“These allow the students to quickly imbibe the spirit of Silicon Valley. And over a period, the students came back and started their own companies,” said Prof Tee.

As examples, he cited Carousell, the online secondhand goods marketplace, and ShopBack, the shopping and rewards platform.

The NUS Enterprise innovation hub in San Francisco, rebranded as Block 71 Silicon Valley in November, has supported over 130 start-ups. These have raised a total of $3.5 billion in venture capital, angel and government funding, and touched a total valuation of $10.4 billion. 

Four unicorns have emerged from its wings including Nium, the cross-border payments company, and Patsnap, a global database for conducting patent searches.

Both Workstream and Lucence say they have benefited from being part of the Block 71 community and learnt from interactions with other first-time entrepreneurs.

Prof Tee sees more to come, with NUS Enterprise focused on deep tech that includes advanced new technologies like AI and robotics.

“In the first wave of innovation, unicorns that you see traditionally have been in fintech or digital tech or e-commerce. The next wave will come from companies with technologies with broad impacts, climate tech, energy, maybe healthcare platforms.

“We hope that some of these will become MNCs and household names,” he said.

Workstream’s Mr Lim, speaking of Singaporean start-up founders, said: “We are capable, driven, hardworking, humble and hungry.

“It is a matter of time.”