Stories

PayPal Champions Small Businesses in Singapore During Global Entrepreneurship Week

Last week marked PayPal’s inaugural Global Entrepreneurship Week – a time for offices and employees across the world to celebrate and give back to entrepreneurs. At PayPal’s International Headquarters in Singapore, four events spread over the week focused on providing sustainable and impactful support to empower small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with tools, knowledge, and connections to build lasting success.

Born from PayPal’s longstanding recognition of SMBs as engines of innovation, job creation, and economic growth, the event saw employees channeling their skills to help SMBs reach their full potential in the digital economy – in line with the Week’s theme: “Champion a Small Business, Champion your Community.”

Digital Accelerator Pitch Competition: Fueling Innovation

A “Shark Tank”-inspired competition offered a dynamic stage for three startups to pitch their bold visions directly to a panel of PayPal leaders and external judges, for a chance to win a share of an $8,000 funding pool.

“This event is a testament to existing synergies between corporates like PayPal, the wider startup ecosystem community, and the government to collaborate and catalyze entrepreneurship in Singapore. It demonstrates that by connecting the dots – bringing together problem statements, resources, and opportunities – we’re laying the foundation for outstanding innovation and growth.” – Desmond Low, Head, Partnerships and Startup Development, Action Community for Entrepreneurship (Judge, PayPal Digital Accelerator Pitch Competition)

MADCash pitched their vision of micro-funding underserved, female-run micro-SMEs, with a goal of creating future bankability; while MyBBuddy shared their plans for an app offering 24/7 assistance for lactating mothers. While the winning margins were razor-thin, it was ultimately Skilio, with its mission of connecting Gen Z talent from smaller cities in Southeast Asia to international employers, which won the Judge’s Choice.

“We’re thrilled to have been named the Judge’s Choice winner. This prize money will be instrumental in executing our growth plans, including funding scholarships for 150 deserving students across Southeast Asia. I’m looking forward to diving into the accelerator phase and taking our vision of empowering Gen Zs in Southeast Asia to the next level.” – Felix Tan, Co-Founder and CEO, Skilio

In addition to the share of funding which all 3 start-ups took home, PayPal also sponsored a three-month digital accelerator program – providing tailored support to help them digitize and grow, with participants from all three regions—San Jose, New York, and Singapore—working together as a community to scale their businesses.

Pro Bono Clinic: Sharing Mutual Insight

PayPal also led a Pro Bono clinic for SMBs, offering a small group of merchants valuable business insights and guidance in selecting the payments solutions best suited to their needs. Hands-on demonstrations from product experts, consumer journey insights, and an interactive Q&A session ensured participants not only left with actionable knowledge to support their business growth; but also served as a means to help PayPal teams better understand small businesses’ needs.

“All innovation needs to be rooted in a customer need. Opportunities to have a two-way conversation with our merchant community, and better understand their needs, are essential to enable our goal of helping SMBs scale up by powering their cross-border business.” - Belinda Koh, Head of Inside Sales APAC

Impact Collaboration Roundtable: Building an Ecosystem

PayPal also supported an Impact Collaboration Roundtable organized by Singapore-based sustainability-focused social enterprise Coco Veda. Stemming from the importance of a supportive ecosystem to enable social enterprises – with their limited resources – to serve their communities, Coco Veda brought together various other social enterprises and prospective partners to discuss a framework for domestic and cross-border success.

"We want to establish a framework which can not only extend the impact of our own farm-to-consumer model, but also be replicated by other social enterprises to champion their own causes. We can’t do it alone – collaborating with companies like PayPal and others will be critical to help us enable sustainable change.” – Raj Singh, Chief Visionary and Impact Officer, Coco Veda

Shopping with Purpose

An in-office marketplace also saw PayPal employees showing their support for SMBs and social enterprises directly, with purchases powered by PayPal’s No Code Payment Solution – allowing merchants to accept a wide range of payment methods easily and with no technical integration necessary.

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