Your fastest path to a deal in Asia. We build it. You own it.
SBC Expand incorporates a local entity in Singapore, staffs it, sells your product in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, and closes your first deals. We co-invest our own capital covering the local cost base. When the business is proven, you acquire it at a price agreed on day one, and it becomes your Asia headquarters, starting in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.
Built for post-PMF startups with proven products, early revenue or reference customers, and a concrete Asia expansion mandate but without trusted in-market GTM infrastructure.
Great product. Impossible choice.
Every founder eyeing Asia faces the same 2 options.
Hire first, validate later
A country manager in Singapore costs USD 150K–250K a year fully loaded and takes 12 to 18 months to produce a verdict. If the market says no, you’ve burned cash learning it. This is the single most common way Asia expansions die.
Sell remotely from HQ
It feels free but enterprise buyers here buy on trust and presence; procurement stalls, deals drift and a local competitor who can show up in person takes the deal.
Where Asia expansion usually goes wrong:
Surface-level market data
Generalized statistics hide the real differences between the distinct gateway markets across Asia. Strategy built on averages goes nowhere.
Regulatory complexity
Every market has its own rules, licensing and compliance. Getting them wrong is costly; navigating them alone is slow.
Poor product-market fit
Excellent products become irrelevant without localizing the pitch, the pricing and the positioning.
Cultural misalignment
Buyers in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan behave differently. Messaging that lands at home often falls flat here.
SBC Expand is not an accelerator program. It is our offer to be your Asia operating partner.
Traditional accelerators give you three months, a demo day, and a wave goodbye. We do the opposite. We stay, we operate, and our success is tied to yours.
We establish a local entity, run your entire go-to-market, and put our own team, technology and capital behind winning the market. We share and win in the outcome, not just collect a fee.
Four things that make us different:
All-in alignment, and we mean all-in.
We never represent products that compete with yours. When we take you on, we go all-in on your success because we can’t hedge across your rivals. This is the deepest form of alignment in the market, and it’s the reason founders trust us with their most valuable asset: their market.
Cost-efficient, low financial risk.
We cover the cost of local sales, marketing and business development. You get zero-to-traction support for less than the cost of a single local hire.
Resource-light, you keep full control.
We do the heavy lifting of building and running the local business. You provide product training and help close the big deals. You retain full ownership and control of your company throughout.
Risk mitigation, easy and compliant.
Market validation before major investment. A fully operational go-to-market infrastructure from day one. Sales and compliance experts already in-market.
We’re selective on purpose. It’s why the model works.
We don’t take everyone. We can’t and we wouldn’t want to. Because our success is tied to your revenue, we only partner with companies whose product can genuinely win here.
Before we say yes, two things have to be true:
Your product must have a right to win in Asia.
How is your product better for a specific buyer in a specific vertical than what they can buy locally today? If we can’t name the segment you’d win and the incumbent you’d displace, we pass.Our selectivity is your quality signal: if we take you on, it’s because we believe you’ll win.
We must have mutual trust.
This is a joint venture, not an outsourced service. We’re building something together and staying in it for the long haul. Chemistry and trust between our teams isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a requirement.
We work with technologically strong companies whose solutions are well positioned to out-compete local alternatives across Asia.
We only take 1 company competing in the same category. If your competitor signs with us, we’re closed to you for years.
You’re a strong fit if:
What founders ask us
What happens in the first 90 days?+
A market-entry sprint, not a passive program. Tangible outputs include a beachhead market recommendation, an ICP/buyer map, a partner and channel map, an introduction pathway, first customer or partner conversations, a red-flag checklist, and a 30/60/90-day GTM plan.
What companies are a strong fit?+
Post-PMF, revenue-generating startups targeting Asia. B2B, B2B2C, AI/software, deeptech, climate/industrial, and medtech or regulated workflows. Teams with expansion urgency but no trusted in-market GTM infrastructure.
What companies are not a fit?+
Pre-revenue companies still finding product-market fit, and teams without a genuine, concrete Asia expansion mandate. We only take one company per category, so fit cuts both ways.
How is this different from an accelerator?+
We avoid generic "mentors and workshops" framing. This is a market-entry sprint with curated operator, partner, customer and investor conversations, with our own team, technology and capital behind winning the market.
How is this different from hiring a local sales lead?+
Hiring is a high fixed-cost move before market validation. We help validate your beachhead market, buyers, partners and GTM motion first, so you don’t commit USD 150K–250K before knowing the market says yes.
How is this different from using a distributor?+
Resellers can be fast, but founders risk lower margin, weak customer insight, brand dilution and poor channel control. We help you decide whether partner-led, direct or hybrid GTM is right, and we never represent a competing product.
What introductions are included?+
Curated operator, partner, customer and investor conversations across your target markets, grounded in an always-on map of real commercial opportunities across Asia, matched to your product when the fit and timing are right.
How much founder time is required?+
You stay in full control and ownership. We do the heavy lifting of building and running the local business. Your team provides product training and helps close the big deals.
What is the commercial / risk-sharing model?+
We co-invest our own capital, team and reputation and only win when you do. The local operation is built around your product alone, with category exclusivity and a clear, pre-agreed path to full integration when you’re ready.
What does it cost / what do I pay?+
Two parts: a co-investment fee to stand up and run the local entity, far less than the fully-loaded cost of one local hire, and a commission on the revenue we generate. We walk through them on the intro call.
What happens if the market doesn't work out?+
You walk away. There's no entity to unwind, no severance, no office lease left on your books, we carry that risk. You keep everything learned: the validated (or invalidated) market read, the buyer map, and the pipeline data.
The backing of one of the world’s leading accelerators
SBC Expand is built on the foundations of Startupbootcamp, a global network that has supported over 1,600 startups since 2010, across 13 offices and four continents, with 5,000+ experts behind it. What we’ve added is a fundamentally different model for one specific, hard problem: actually winning a new market, not just preparing to.
Asia is the USD 1.16 trillion opportunity. Let’s go win it together!
We work with a deliberately small, select group of exceptional companies. If you have a product that can win here and the ambition to make Asia count, we’d like to talk.