The co-founder of Sea Ltd is now worth US$1.3bil , joining fellow co-founders Forrest Li and Gang Ye among Singapore’s wealthiest individuals. Their company has thrived during the pandemic thanks to the popularity of battle royale mobile gameBy far the city-state’s biggest company by market value, Sea didn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of the island’s approach to lure foreign talent at a young age to a market with easy access to capital.
Both Chen and Ye arrived in Singapore as teenagers under a government effort to recruit foreign talent through scholarship programmes that began in the 1990s. Chen studied computer engineering at the National University of Singapore, while Ye, also originally from China, went to Hwa Chong Institution and Raffles Junior College, and later got bachelor degrees in computer science and economics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Yet the city-state’s appeal has been growing for entrepreneurs, just as the Trump administration has been working to tighten immigration in the United States. The number of startups in Singapore has more than doubled in the last decade to an estimated 55,000, according to the Economic Development Board. While that mirrors an explosion seen in many countries around the world, official support for areas such as fintech has helped entice entrepreneurs from places like protest-wracked Hong Kong.