Now – Grants and Credits

In July this year, our VCPE course was made eligible for the FTS grant by the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF). This grant potentially subsidises up to 95% of our course fee for eligible participants. However, this was restricted to company-sponsored employees and these companies needed to be licensed or exempted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Yesterday, we were informed by the IBF that our VCPE course has been included in the SkillsFuture credits scheme. This scheme allows any participants with SkillsFuture credits (Singaporeans and PRs) to use these credits to offset the course fees. I consider this a breakthrough as this will give more Singaporeans and PRs the opportunity to attend our course. We are extremely grateful for the relevant government agencies who have taken the time to assess our applications.

THEN – EDB SEEDS & VALUATION

This reminded me of the period when the Economic Development Board (EDB) was administering the SEEDS scheme. This is a government co-funding scheme for startups and early stage companies. At that time, EDB required applicants to do an independent valuation of their ventures. Among the various recommended valuers (and there were not many valuers of such ventures then) were the usual big accounting firms (with fees that were prohibitively too expensive for startups) and……Capital Plus. We took it upon ourselves to provide a experience-based valuation exercise at a fraction of the price that the accounting firms charged.  Even now, I am always grateful that the Singapore government has always given small home-grown companies like ours, a fair chance of being involved in the industry here.

LOOKING FORWARD

We have no unrealistic ambition of being the best and the largest. Our modest aspiration is to be among the best at what we do. We are now looking at creating products that can reach out to a larger audience through the internet through our experience, expertise and technology. Especially when we do not know how long this Covid environment will last and what a post-vaccine world would look like.

Lee Koon