Growth & Market Entry Specialists — Singapore & ASEAN
Accelerate your growth.
Enter markets.
Build with confidence.
Whether you are scaling an existing business or entering Singapore for the first time, 49/51 Partners is the local team that turns strategy into execution — hands-on delivery, no handoffs. The name is the deal: you keep the 51% (your brand, your ambition, your equity), and we bring the local 49% that makes it land.
Where are you starting from?
Already growing in Singapore or ASEAN?
You have hit a ceiling, or can see one coming. We find what is actually stopping growth, then install the AI sales and marketing workflows that make the team you already have move like a bigger one.
- Diagnose the ceiling first — positioning, channels, pricing or bandwidth
- AI workflows for outreach, content and reporting, installed or taught
- Every workflow human-reviewed — AI-powered, never AI-hyped
Planning to enter Singapore?
You have a business that works somewhere else. Singapore will not reward a copy-paste of it, and the things that decide the outcome are rarely in the deck you were sold.
- Readiness audit before anyone spends money
- Regulatory, licensing and structure mapped early
- Brand localisation and launch, executed not advised
Results, not promises
Our Work
Yoga+
A four-month growth engagement for an established Singapore studio — reactivating a decade-old client base, rebuilding the website, and resetting how the brand and its method relate.
The City Show
A theatrical bus tour for Singapore, built from nothing: name, brand system, launch strategy, and engagement with STB and LTA to map the regulatory path.
TopDeck 360°
A market entry analysis and a brand, for a new observation experience above Raffles Place — naming, identity, and a pioneer trade programme built to sign tour agencies ahead of opening.
Where experience matters
We don't do generic. We know your industry.
Wellness & Fitness
Singapore's wellness consumer is affluent and health-literate. Whether you are targeting the Gen Z girl boss, the startup eComm bro, or the health-conscious silver fox, we help you locate and market your difference.
Explore Wellness & Fitness →
F&B
From hawker-adjacent value plays to premium dining, Singapore rewards distinctive concepts. We advise on halal certification and delivery-platform onboarding so you do not learn it the hard way.
Explore F&B →
Education
Demand for enrichment and private education here is real, but registration decides who gets to operate. A centre teaching ten or more students registers with MOE under the Education Act, and every teacher must be individually registered. A post-secondary institution is a different regime entirely. We clear the right path first, then build enrolment.
Explore Education →
Tech & SaaS
Singapore is the region's preferred launch pad for technology businesses, and its enterprise buyers do their homework before they reply. We position you for that scrutiny and open the right doors.
Explore Tech & SaaS →Partner with us
The 49/51 Advantage
We are your local team in Singapore — advisor, executor, and growth engine, depending on what you need.
For Growth Acceleration
Nothing we install is theoretical. The prospect research, outreach and content workflows we build for clients are the ones running our own pipeline — and we will show you ours working live before you pay a cent.
AI does the drafting, the research and the reporting at speed; a strategist who has run the P&L reviews every decision. No black box, and no one blaming the model when a campaign misses.
For Market Entry
Our team lives and breathes Singapore — business relationships, media connections and consumer insight you cannot get from a deck written offshore.
Most SME grant schemes require at least 30% Singaporean ownership, so a wholly foreign-owned entity will not qualify. We tell you that upfront, then map what your structure can actually access.
You bring the 51%.
We bring the 49%.
Your brand, your product, your ambition — that's the majority stake, and it stays yours. We bring the other 49%: the local knowledge, relationships and execution that make it land in Singapore. Neither half succeeds alone.
From insight to impact
One process. Two starting points.
Readiness Audit
Whether you're entering Singapore or scaling within it, we start by mapping where you actually stand.
Blueprint
A specific plan — market entry roadmap or growth acceleration plan — built around your goals, not a template.
Launch & Execute
We run it. Brand localisation, paid media, PR, partnerships. Hands-on, not handed-off.
Optimise & Scale
Performance reporting and ASEAN expansion advisory, so month one isn't the ceiling.
The market, in numbers
The opportunity is real. So is the competition for it.
Singapore–ASEAN merchandise trade in 2023, the most recent year officially published.
Consumers across ASEAN's eleven member states — reachable from one base, on one set of relationships.
Chinese direct investment into ASEAN in 2024, up 36.8% year on year. Singapore took the largest share.
One caveat we would rather you heard from us: Singapore's share of Chinese outbound investment is inflated by its role as a holding-company base, so the money landing here is not all staying here. Your entry plan should account for that. Ask us what the number means for your category — that is a shorter conversation than it sounds.
Questions we hear every week
Straight answers, before you ever pay us.
How long does it take to set up a company in Singapore?
Most ACRA registrations are approved shortly after payment. Complex applications can take up to 15 working days, and if your business name triggers a referral authority — many regulated activities do — clearance runs 14 to 60 days. We check that before you file. The longer poles are opening a corporate bank account and any sector licences, and we sequence all three in parallel so nothing waits on paperwork.
Do I need to be physically present in Singapore to incorporate?
No. Incorporation can be handled remotely. Some banks ask for a video call or one in-person visit for account opening, and we tell you which before you book flights.
What is a nominee director and do I need one?
Every Singapore company needs at least one director who is ordinarily resident here. If you do not have one, a nominee fills that seat to satisfy the requirement — ownership and control of the company stay with you. Since June 2025 this is regulated ground: under the Corporate Service Providers Act, a nominee director can only be appointed by way of business through an ACRA-registered corporate service provider, who must satisfy a fit-and-proper duty. We introduce you to a registered provider and make sure the structure is set up properly.
How much capital do I need to start a Singapore company?
The legal minimum paid-up capital is S$1. That is the floor, not the answer. Banks, landlords and MOM all assess capital adequacy separately — an Employment Pass or EntrePass application will be read against it. The real number is working capital for your entry: premises, hires, marketing, licences. That comes out of the audit, not a rule of thumb.
What government grants can a foreign-owned company actually get?
Fewer than you have probably been told, and this is where most advisers are vague. The two schemes everyone names — the Enterprise Development Grant and Market Readiness Assistance — both require at least 30% local equity measured by ultimate individual ownership. A wholly foreign-owned Singapore subsidiary does not qualify, and incorporating here does not change that. MRA is also the wrong direction: it funds Singapore-based companies expanding overseas, not foreign companies coming in. What is worth mapping is the EDB-administered incentive set, and whether a joint venture that genuinely clears 30% local ownership makes commercial sense for you — that is a shareholding decision, not a grant application. We do that mapping in the audit, before you count on any of it.
What's the difference between the Market Entry Audit and the GTM Retainer?
The audit (S$8,000, 2–3 weeks) tells you whether and how to enter: market readiness, competition, regulation, and a concrete blueprint. The retainer (S$15,000 per month) is us executing that blueprint with you, month by month. Most clients start with the audit.
Can I start with just the audit before committing to anything else?
Yes, and most clients do. The audit stands on its own. If the honest answer is “do not enter yet,” you will hear it from us in the report, not after a retainer.
Do you have Mandarin-speaking team members?
Yes — at founder level. Strategy conversations, negotiations and documents can run fully in Mandarin, and our Chinese-language materials are written natively, not translated.
Do you work with companies in all industries?
We are strongest in wellness & fitness, F&B, education, and tech. Outside those, we will tell you in the first call whether we are the right team, and point you elsewhere if we are not.
How do you measure success?
Against KPIs agreed at the start of each engagement — leads, revenue, partnerships or launch milestones, depending on the brief — with monthly reporting you can read in five minutes.