WHEN medical technology startup N&E Innovations founder Didi Gan started her business in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, she found herself struggling to raise funds.
Especially at an early stage of the business cycle, it can be “very difficult for women entrepreneurs to look for funding”, Gan said.
She added that she had to “bootstrap” – or build her business from scratch with minimal external capital – “for the first two to three years”.
Such fund-raising difficulties had led to some uneven outcomes for women compared to their male counterparts.
According to data from OCBC, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) owned by women have, in general, registered slightly lower growth in sales turnover within the first three years of operations.
However, women-owned businesses which tapped financing to support their growth were able to bridge the gap, the bank said.
Linus Goh, head of global commercial banking at OCBC, noted that while he sees many convincing examples of women entrepreneurs leading successful businesses, there is a “disconnect” as the growth in the representation of women-led businesses in the economy still “lags their male counterparts”.
“Even in a developed market like Singapore, where women founders have a track record of building successful businesses and have grown at a faster rate than their male counterparts over the past five years, women-owned SMEs account for only about 30 per cent of all businesses here,” he said.
OCBC is announcing on Friday (Mar 8) – which is also International Women’s Day – a new SME programme to accelerate the growth of women-owned businesses and increase their representation in the economy.
The OCBC Women Entrepreneurs Programme, which will launch in April, is the first programme dedicated to women entrepreneurs by a Singapore bank, it said.
Through this, women-founded startups can secure financing of up to S$100,000 within the first two years of incorporation, with the processing fee for such loans to be waived.
The bank said a quarter of its SME customers in Singapore currently are owned by female entrepreneurs.
Building support networks
OCBC also hopes the programme will help grow the number of female founders in traditionally male-dominated industries such as manufacturing, resources, building and construction, as well as transport and logistics.
Women currently account for over 25 per cent of representation in such male-dominated industries, which Goh describes as an “encouraging sign”.
He added: “If we were to be able to lever that proportion of representation in the economy in the various sectors, then you also have a strong economy going forward.”
Besides financial aid, Goh said the programme aims to help women entrepreneurs gain better connectivity and access to one another.
This would be done through educational workshops and opportunities to network and find mentors in other successful female entrepreneurs.
N&E Innovations’ Gan also stressed the importance of having a support network, especially in the early years of one’s business.
“In our earlier days, it was a very lonely journey,” she said, adding that such a programme would allow women entrepreneurs to “support each other and raise more funding”.
Sharon Lim, chairperson and former chief executive officer of 3D fashion design platform Browzwear, agreed that such support could “help level the playing ground”.
“Some funds worry more when a woman is in charge, and do not want to invest because they calculate her other responsibilities,” Lim said.
“It took me 20 years to come to this point,” she added, hoping that with the help of the programme, “it could halve (the duration of) everyone’s journey”.
Beyond borders
The programme will be rolled out in Singapore before it is launched in Malaysia and Hong Kong at a later stage.
It builds on a similar initiative in Indonesia, where OCBC has supported about 1,400 women entrepreneurs running micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) since the launch in 2020.
Goh recognised that it is essential to have a programme that “empowers women entrepreneurs to go beyond the borders of Singapore”.
He added that the bank aims to support women’s journeys as they face challenges typically associated with women who are at the forefront of business, innovation and breaking norms in industries.
The financing for the Women Entrepreneurs Programme will be provided under the OCBC SME Sustainable Finance Framework, which has been expanded to include a new category for social loans.
In the context of social loans, Goh sees women-led businesses as “a significant differentiator”.
He added that the programme would help the “performance of women in businesses and their contribution to economies” and have a “positive impact on diversity in the workforce”.
