Haymarket HQ helping Singapore start-ups get a foot in the door

Sydney’s Haymarket HQ has brought together Singaporean start-ups with VC firms to help them break into the local market.

Singaporean start-ups including Suresh Superamaniam of Showsuite, Simon Gordon of Accredify and Haymarket chief Duco van Breemen. Picture: Jane Dempster

A business which analyses human behaviour by turning CCTV cameras into data mines using AI is among 10 Singaporean start-ups which were flown into Sydney this week to meet with local venture capitalist firms Main Sequence and BlueArc Capital among other strategic partners to break into the local market.

The businesses, which arrived on Monday, are being hosted by Haymarket HQ, the Chinatown start-up factory wedged between a karaoke den and dessert store in Sydney.

The first cohort is part of two in total who arrive via the GIA Singapore-Australia Market Accelerator program – backed by Enterprise Singapore – which is paying Haymarket HQ to help host them and introduce them to local businesses.

Lauretta.io, which has landed contracts with Lendlease in Asia, plans to hire two local staff and open an Australian office by the end of this year.

Yuvanesh Tamil Selvan, the start-up’s Asia Pacific general manager, was sent here to facilitate finding an office as well as meet potential retail centres, clients and property managers.

Lauretta.io Asia Pacific general manager Yuvanesh Tamil Selvan.

Lauretta, which has received investment from Lendlease, JLL, Wavemaker and Techstars, provides data insights to businesses by running a feed from existing CCTV cameras into its system.

“People think CCTV is only used for security, but we use them to provide new data points on customers. With our technology, we can help businesses understand who their visitors are and what their visitors do,” Mr Tamil Selvan said.

The business, which also has an office in the US and about 20 staff in total, was unlocking new data insights which could be used not only to improve security but for real-time advertising, he said.

“By looking at people’s interactions in a space, interest in a particular product, or aisle in a store, you could anonymously sell them or present them the right kind of advertisement,” he said.

Lauretta was seeing a number of companies turn to its product as a way to make security products more affordable, Mr Tamil Selvan said.

“Globally there are over one billion CCTV cameras and right now the cost of the hardware is decreasing but the cost of manpower to provide security is increasing,” he said.

Haymarket HQ chief executive Duco van Breemen said the GIA accelerator also offered a pathway for Australian investors and start-ups to familiarise themselves with the Singaporean market.

Other cities which had taken part in the program included Seoul, in South Korea, and Beijing and Shanghai in China. Similarly, these would present some opportunity for Australian businesses, he said.

Haymarket HQ boss Duco van Breemen and founder Brad Chan. Picture: Chris Pavlich

“We’ve seen quite an interest from southeast Asian countries in Australia recently. While China has its own challenges, people are waking up to the fact Australia can be a globally significant market in its own right,” he said.

Singaporean businesses treated Australia as a “test market” or an extension of Singapore, as the countries shared similar values and there was only a two-hour difference across time zones, Mr van Breemen said.

“The US has always been the holy grail whether you’re working for a Chinese or Australian company for the vast majority, however it’s also extremely expensive and extremely competitive,” he said.

“Australia, on the other hand, is less daunting and requires less funding. Success in Australia also showcases that a start-up can achieve global traction.”

On being on the ground in Sydney, Mr Tamil Selvan said: “I think Haymarket is very strategically located.

“It’s a familiar place for overseas people, it’s easy to settle into, there’s food that overseas people would be familiar with, and it’s right in the CBD with access to all the big companies.

“And the weather is perfect here. Whenever I get a chance I go and get a nice cup of coffee, find a random seat and I just sit down to enjoy the weather.”