Blk71

Abbreviations and acronyms. Most countries have theirs, but few can match Singapore’s love for the alphabet soup. “Blk71” - short for the address of this very building and pronounced as such - owes its name and Singapore identity to this predilection. Established in early 1970s[4] as part of the Ayer Rajah Industrial Estate by the Jurong Town Corporation, Blk71 is one of the oldest industrial buildings in Singapore serving the light manufacturing industry. By 2010, Blk71, together with a few blocks within this industrial estate was slated for demolition to make way for redevelopment.[5]

However, in 2011, NUS Enterprise, the Media Development Authority and SingTel Innov8 collaborated to turn Blk71 into a start-up hub, by setting up a strategic incubation programme at BLOCK71, known as Plug-In@Blk71. The intention was to pull together the technology start-up cluster, which was previously dispersed around Singapore, to one common location, for increased synergy and economies of scale. With this development, BLK71 rapidly transformed from an old, deserted industrial estate into a thriving start-up hub.[6]

Early 2015, Infocomm Investment, the investment arm of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore inaugurated the extension of Blk71 to neighboring Blk79[7] (dubbed BASH for Build Amazing Startups Here), which is also a refurbished industrial estate. A third and last unit, Blk73, designed for smaller startups, is being built up and should open in 2015.

Plug-In@Blk71, established in September 2011, was Singapore's 1st co-working space for startups that provides start-ups in the interactive digital media space access to resources needed to effectively develop and market their solutions. Since 2011, a strong start-up community has been established at Plug-In@Blk71, where people regularly share contacts, ideas and success stories, which has allowed the start-up scene to grow rapidly. Today. it is no longer called Plug-in@Blk71 but instead, BLOCK71 Singapore. This is also a move made for our counterparts BLOCK71 Jakarta and BLOCK71 San Francisco.

Managed by NUS Enterprise, BLOCK71 Singapore provides a common platform for entrepreneurs and stakeholders to meet, connect and accelerate the growth of ideas and start-ups. Located on level 2 of Block 71, BLOCK71 Singapore provides hot-desking space for entrepreneurs to work on their ideas. There are about 30[8] entrepreneurs/ start-ups/ business ideas located at the hot-desking space each month, which typically stay there for several weeks up to a few months. Start-ups are given 24-hour access to BLOCK71 Singapore.

BLOCK71 Singapore has shared resources, including meeting rooms, a large seminar room, free internet access, pantry supplies and office equipment. BLOCK71 Singapore is supporting the entrepreneurial community through events, programmes and new initiatives. There are approximately 2-5 events organized each week,[9] including mentoring sessions, business clinics, VC pitching sessions, industrial sharing seminars and networking events.

The companies based at BLOCK71 are typically technology start-ups. The majority of them are within the interactive digital media space, including Stream Media, which develops a mobile in-app payment platform, travelmob, which provides an online market place for vacation rentals across Asia, Daylight Studios, a mobile game developer and Appknox, a mobile security company. However, there are also a few hardware tech companies, such as Zimplistic, which is developing the world’s first automatic roti-maker and T.Ware, which is developing a wearable technology that provides deep pressure to calm autistic children.

There are approximately 30 organisations located at Blk71 that provide a range of funding and in-kind support, including angel investment, seed funding, series A, B and beyond. These include NUS Enterprise (which manages Plug-In@Blk71 as well as has additional incubation space on levels 1 and 3), and JFDI.Asia.