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Provides youths with grants of up to $50,000 to start their innovative business

YES! Startups was launched on 18 November 2008 with the objective of nurturing and encouraging youths to be enterprising and innovative through ‘hands-on’ entrepreneurship learning. This scheme will provide funding support for youths to set up their innovative startup.

YES! Startups complements the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Schools, or YES! Schools, launched last month. Both schemes tap on the $25 million Entrepreneurial Talent Development Fund (ETDF), which was launched four years ago to provide seed money to students to turn their innovative ideas into businesses.

Through YES! Startups, SPRING will match with $4 for every $1 raised by the applicant through self-funding, schools or any other third-party sources. The maximum amount of grant provided under YES! Startups is $50,000.

Eligibility

YES! Startups is available to applicants who meet the following eligibility criteria :

• Singapore citizen or Permanent Resident, below 26 years old on the date of application (before 26th Birthday)
• Parental consent must be sought for those below 18 years old
• First-time entrepreneur
• Incorporation of a private limited company (upon approval) with its business activities wholly or mainly based in Singapore.

Evaluation
Criteria

SPRING will evaluate business proposal based on the following criteria :

• Innovativeness of the Business Idea How different/novel the idea is against what is already available in the market?
• Feasibility of the business model Is the business model viable and potentially sustainable?
• Potential market opportunity Will the market demand and buy such an item?

1. At least half of the money raised by youths to qualify for co-matching to come from the IHLs,
2. Start-ups make use of Intellectual Property (IP) owned by IHLs, or
3. IHLs incubate and mentor new starts-ups for at least 12 months.

For engaging NEI advise, duly filled up the one page executive summary and email it to neiquery@nus.edu.sg.

You may wish to refer to SPRING website for further details.