Finding opportunities in Singapore’s silver economy
28 January 2025
Across the world, people are living longer than ever, thanks to improvements in public health, nutrition, progress in medicine and greater awareness of the importance of living a healthy life. By 2030, one in six people will be over the age of 60. By 2050, the number of over 60s will exceed 2.1 billion.[1]
Contending with an ageing population, and in turn a shrinking workforce, will be critical for all countries. But it’s particularly urgent in Singapore – which is among the most rapidly ageing countries globally and the fastest-ageing country in ASEAN. About one-quarter of Singaporeans are projected to be 65 or older by 2030.[2]
The city-state’s low birth rate has led to numerous concerns, including the strains it can impose on society, the increased need for healthcare spending on an older population and the shrinkage of the income tax base due to a fall in the working-age population.
But the change in demographics will also create vast opportunities within Singapore’s silver economy – those goods and services that can be targeted at the purchasing power of the older population. That silver economy is expected to be worth a hefty US$72.4 billion this year.[3]
As the silver economy expands, fuelled by rising demand for healthcare, senior living, and lifestyle services, investors and entrepreneurs alike are seeking agile ways to capitalise on this growth across sectors like telemedicine, health tech, elderly nutrition and assisted living. Long-term shareholders can consider using securities-backed financing to fund new investments in this promising area.
Investment potential
The Singapore government is doing its part. For one, it is seeking to promote the thriving local medtech sector – medical devices, digital health, life science tools and diagnostics. The hope is that this will not only help serve the needs of Singapore’s ageing population but will also contribute to creating high-skilled employment opportunities and diversifying the local economy.
Another example is Singapore’s burgeoning industrial robot sector, supported by the government’s National Robotics Programme, established in 2016. The multi-agency national programme focuses on end-to-end development of differentiating robotics enablers and solutions, aimed at enhancing productivity, safety, quality of work and resilience – and which can be easily adapted to the nation’s elderly population.
This focus on the silver economy has fuelled the establishment of a string of startups across sectors, each of them offering innovative, technology-driven solutions to improve and streamline elderly care.
For instance, Singapore startup Tetsuyu Healthcare, founded in 2015, is hoping to solve common pain points in elderly wound care – a daily, but manual and time-consuming activity – by offering an artificial intelligence-enabled app that can measure, analyse and monitor the condition of a wound through a photograph.[4]
Healthtech firms such as Jaga-Me and Homage pair older patients with caregivers via mobile applications, while startups SmartPeep and SoundEye use technology to detect when an older person has had a fall, triggering an alert for help.
Securities-backed financing: bridging the gap
Some of these startups are keen to go global to leverage international growth opportunities. After all, Asia Pacific’s silver economy as a whole is estimated to become a US$4.6 trillion market by 2025.[5]
Tetsuyu’s wound imaging app, for instance, is already being used in Hong Kong and some hospitals in Australia. Homage, meanwhile, operates in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.
On the robotics front, cleaning robot developer LionsBot set up a new facility in Singapore last year that would boost its manufacturing capacity by five times[6] – a timely increase, given expectations of further automation in the future and the growing need for automated and hassle-free cleaning options among the elderly.
Such investment opportunities are ripe for the picking. Other investment options include long-term financial planning services that would be needed as both older people and younger people make plans for their later years.
This means investors – be they high and ultra-high net worth individuals, entrepreneurs, company owners, directors or shareholders – that back businesses courting the silver economy can see strong growth potential.
Using securities-backed financing can offer accredited investors several advantages. Long-term shareholders can access liquidity to diversify their positions to new sectors without sacrificing the upside potential of their underlying holdings. This will help them rebalance their portfolios to reflect the burgeoning silver economy opportunity in Singapore, and perhaps also back the growth of homegrown leaders developing technology solutions to deal with an ageing world.
Given the Singapore government’s support for the tech ecosystem, these homegrown startups have a good chance of becoming the next big thing in their industries – something early-stage investors can benefit from in the long run.
As Singapore’s silver economy continues to thrive, securities-backed financing has clear potential as a bridge between untapped investment potential and the capital needed to realise it.
[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health
[2] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-studying-wealth-tax-relook-fiscal-strategies-lawrence-wong-2246646
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/30/as-singapores-aging-population-grows-businesses-court-older-spenders.html
[4] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/silver-economy-singapore-businesses-build-products-services-ageing-population-2267176
[5] https://res.cloudinary.com/dlxokai3c/image/upload/v1731295864/PR3_WorldAgeingFestival2024_30Apr_btwop1.pdf
[6] https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/singapore/singapore-s-first-robocluster-launched-facilities-management-turn-r-d-market-solutions
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