DMV Labs

DMV Labs is an accelerator for early-stage tech founders seeking to steward the power of business for the good of their neighbours and the renewal of culture. Through a high-touch programme, founders will have access to content taught from a Biblical worldview, support from fellow entrepreneurs, and mentoring from seasoned builders who believe in the power of redemptive entrepreneurship.

What can you expect from the programme?

Transformative Content

We will journey together through what it means to build a redemptive framework, as well as how to bring the principles to our operations. Founders will have the opportunity to discern areas where perhaps a recalibration to the master Builder Himself is needed, so that redemptive impact is achieved in a financially sustainable manner. Sessions will include: 

 

Re/Frame 

Our kick-off weekend will be spent exploring redemptive possibilities in an organizational setting, known as the Redemptive Frame. This will overlay the 3 Ways to Work (Exploitative, Ethical, Redemptive) with the 3 Dimensions of Work (Strategy, Operations, Leadership).

 

Product

How do we develop products, services, and experiences that genuinely benefit our customers, their communities, and the world, while thoughtfully minimising downside consequences, manipulative design, or sales practices that erode broader societal trust?

 

Branding

What does it mean to craft a brand through imagination and truth, advancing narratives of virtue and hope? How do we resist the urge to play to our customers’ desires, insecurity, or ego through marketing based on fear or status?

 

Culture

How do we build a team culture that helps people experience their work as neither ultimate nor transactional, but as purposeful and relational? Can we develop each person for and beyond their contribution to our mission, instead of treating them merely as resources to advance our organisation’s interests?

 

Business Model

What does it look like to grow a business that shares value with our customers and partners, considers social and environmental benefits and costs, while responsibly managing financial capital and profit that is essential to a lasting business?

 

Partnerships

How do we grow through partnerships of mutuality and integrity, avoiding a zero-sum view that only considers our own organisational priorities? What would it be like to treat our investors, suppliers, distributors, and all partners as we would like to be treated, considering the needs, pressures, and health of their businesses and communities?

Ambition

How might we surrender our personal ambition to God and seek first the good of others, not ourselves? What does it mean to cultivate gratitude, joy, and humility in the way we lead and serve, instead of privately yielding our desires to an accumulation of wealth, power, and prestige?

Spiritual Formation

We will integrate prayer, teaching, and other shared spiritual practices into the programme so that we grow in faith as we grow in leadership. 

Mentorship

We specially recruit mentors who share our vision of journeying with and supporting each of our founders in their development. They are not only seasoned builders, professionals, and investors themselves, who can guide you with their experiences, but they will seek to care for you as a whole person. Mentors will also attend the kick-off sessions and remain available for contact throughout the course of the accelerator. Peer mentoring will also be a feature of DMV Labs, as it’s often fellow founders who have valuable experiences to bring to the table!

Values-Aligned Capital

At the end of the programme, DMV Labs participants will each have the opportunity to pitch for up to S$100,000 of investment with our DMV investment committee. 

Meet Your Mentors & Speakers

 

Nicholas Khoo [Mentor]

With over 15 years of diverse experience, Nicholas has been a co-founder and board member in businesses, non-profits, and government. Having worked with Fortune 500 CEOs and investors in tech, media, and education, Nicholas has also led a regional team for Visa supporting internet giants like Tencent, Alibaba, JD and SEA manage their risks in digital transactions, serving on Visa’s Asia Pacific Merchant Sales & Solutions leadership.

 

 

Kuik Shiao-Yin 郭晓韵 [Mentor & Speaker]

Shiao-Yin is the Executive Director of Common Ground, and works as a cultural change strategist, systems/organisational development consultant, process facilitator, executive coach, communicator and trainer. She loves helping large systems develop a more empowering and empathetic way of working with diverse stakeholders through complex issues and volatile times.

 

Shiao-Yin served as a two-time Nominated Member of Parliament. She also advises various boards, helping them shape their approach to socio-cultural values, human talent development and stakeholder engagement. She is a regular public speaker, sharing experiences and insights on cultural narratives, the power of individuals in systems and the need for bridge-building.

 

Sharon Lim [Mentor & Speaker]

Sharon is a Co-founder and CEO of Browzwear, the leading 3D design and merchandizing platform used by leading brands in the industry. She is a corporate visionary who has over 20 years of experience within the apparel industry, from sourcing to retail. After being a global distributor of Browzwear for 8 years, her expertise lies in establishing links between technology and fashion. She also has a passion for eradicating poverty through community development projects and creating sustainability in less-privileged communities in Asia.

 

 

Phua Kok Kim [Mentor]

Kok Kim is presently in semi-retirement with an investment portfolio that includes private equity investments in 3 technology companies. Prior to that, he worked mainly in the real estate and finance sectors for close to 20 years in Mapletree Investments and Temasek Holdings, which involves investments both locally and globally.

 

 

 

Poh Yu Khing [Mentor]

Yu Khing has worked in both government and private sector – spending many years on developing the Singapore Sports Hub project. He is now freelance, but considers himself fully employed by God. He serves God through his corporate consulting work, and also through a Christian marketplace ministry called Resource Global, helping to mentor Christians towards living out their Kingdom calling in the marketplace.

 

 

Chris Sirise [Mentor]

Chris is a partner at Saison Capital, a multi-stage fund investing across Pre-Seed to Series B stage start-ups globally and the venture capital arm of Credit Saison. He leads the team of operator-turned investors based out of Singapore.


Chris has played an active role in Southeast Asia’s tech ecosystem for almost a decade, having been involved in policy making, venture capital and operational roles. Prior to Saison Capital, he was with Grab Financial Group launching financial services in the Philippines. He has a deep interest in development economics and champions for financial inclusion in emerging markets.

 

Gordon Aw [Speaker]

Gordon was ordained in the Methodist Church in Singapore and serve as a full-time minister pastoring several churches for over 20 years. He began a bi-vocational journey in 2000 as a business consultant while remaining as a pastor-advisor. Today he is an IBF (Institute of Banking and Finance) accredited trainer for private bankers.

 

 

Carmen Yuen [Speaker]

Carmen is privileged that God blessed her with four children to train and mould her.  While she started her journey in the venture capital world before VC became fashionable, her journey is certainly pre-planned by the unseen hand.  The journey into the VC world is smooth, yet there are innumerable lessons God is teaching her in this vocation, including the dependence on God.

 

 

Lee Junxian [Mentor & Speaker]

Junxian is a Methodist and was baptised in 2015. Having been schooled primarily in Christian schools, Junxian has gone through the process and struggles of denying, accepting, maturing and delighting in our Lord. He is a startup entrepreneur by profession and is deeply interested in topics pertaining to the practical and functional implications of being a Christian in a modern marketplace.

 

 

Daniel Hazman [Mentor]

Daniel Hazman is a seasoned leader with 20 years of combined experience in retail, supply chains, fast moving consumer goods and technology start-ups across 30 countries. He’s Ex-Walmart and General Mills, and had established the Indonesia country office for President Clinton. Daniel was a Fulbright MBA Scholar and lives in Singapore with his wife Marie.

 

Charmain Tan [Mentor]

Charmain Tan is the Founder and CEO of QuickDesk Pte Ltd which provides one-stop digital sales and marketing solutions — as well as training — for SMEs and business professionals. She then taps on the learnings of developing and growing QuickDesk, to nurture many least and lost through her society – Songkids. She made Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 list for Enterprise Technology in 2019, and Singapore’s inaugural top 100 Women in Tech List in 2020.

 

 

Kevin Sutantyo [Speaker]

Kevin is a Partner for Sovereign’s Capital (Asia), a fund that focuses on early growth stage companies. He began Angel investing in South East Asia and the US in 2010 after managing a US based environmental biotech company for 5 years.  Kevin grew up in Indonesia and has also studied and worked in the US for over 10 years.

 

 

Dennis Goh [Speaker]

Dennis is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Lyte Ventures, a FinTech holding company that supports the growth of the freelancer economy and seeks to build an assured future for freelancers. Prior to this Dennis was a Partner with Wavemaker Partners, founded and sold HungryGoWhere.com and was also Deputy Head of the Strategic Policy Office at the Prime Minister’s Office of Singapore.

 

 

Daniel Aw [Speaker]

Daniel Aw is currently the VP, Enterprise Sales for Red Hat in Asia Pacific. Red Hat is the leading provider of enterprise open source solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.  Prior to Red Hat, Daniel spent 24 years in Hewlett Packard Enterprise in various sales, business and general management roles. He was the Head of Sales Strategy and Planning for HPE prior to him joining Red Hat recently.

 

 

Winston Chan [Mentor]

Winston is the Group Managing Partner of FT Consulting – a Singapore-headquartered, Asia-centric business consulting firm with 30 years of track record. He is listed in “IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists” since 2018, and has been actively involved in franchising, technology transfer, strategic planning, branding, innovation and IP management projects across countries for almost 2 decades. He is also currently appointed board director of IPOS International – the 100+ staff strong expertise and enterprise engagement arm of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore.

 

 

Sze Meng Soon [Speaker]

Sze Meng is the CEO of TiffinLabs and served as the President, South East Asia for JD.com. Sze Meng joined JD.com from Singtel where he was the Vice President for Business in the International Group of Singtel. Previously, he was the General Manager responsible for PayPal businesses in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. He also held marketing and strategy roles in Visa and was in McKinsey and Monitor Deloitte.

 

 

Reuben Ang  [Speaker]

Reuben is the Managing Director of Hesed & Emet, the parent company of well-loved Singapore caterers Elsie’s Kitchen and Continental Delight. The third generation in his family to manage the business, he learned the ropes by spending his school holidays packing bento sets and volunteering for deliveries, and now oversees business development and operations for all subsidiaries. As a believer, he strives to apply a Biblical worldview across the way the business is managed.

 

Programme Cycle

The accelerator will run from 11 December 2021 to 26 February 2022, and will consist of:
  • Three onsite weekends consisting of theologically robust content provided by our content provider, Praxis, quiet time for personal reflection, small-group discussions with like-minded peers, fireside chats with seasoned practitioners, and mentoring sessions.
  • Onsite weekend dates are 11-12 Dec 2021, 8-9 Jan 2022, 12-13 Feb 2022. 
  • The schedule for each onsite day is as follows: Day 1 (8am – 8pm) / Day 2 (8am – 6pm).
  • Regular check-ins with a member of the DMV team for support.
  • A Showcase Day at the end of the programme where founders will share about their companies with our wider ecosyste

Who Should Apply?

A founder who is:

  • Running an early-stage tech venture

  • Intentional about growing God’s Kingdom through a scalable model

  • Serious about embodying the gospel in products, services, and operations

  • Keen to collaborate with other missional companies

Programme Fees

The cost for the programme is S$450 per participant. This is a highly subsidized rate and meant to help partially offset some of the operational costs of the programme.

FAQs

 

  • Am I guaranteed investment as an accelerator participant?

    Our focus is on holistically developing the entrepreneur, helping entrepreneurs become deeply formed as redemptive leaders who guide their ventures to become more effective, more profitable, and more redemptive in their impact. Participants will have the opportunity to pitch for investment but are not guaranteed investment.

  • Can I apply if I only have an idea for a company?

    At this time, we are only accepting early-stage founders who have built a prototype, but do give us a call to share about your idea. Where possible, we’ll be happy to give you feedback and continue to stay in touch, as you continue your journey.

  • Does my company need to be based in Singapore?

    Ideally, yes, as our programme will be conducted in person (where current pandemic restrictions permit).For founders who are not based in Singapore, but are based in the rest of South East Asia, we welcome applications but you will need to support the costs of your flights to/from Singapore and any required entry/exit permits on your own.

  • How many from my company can attend the programme?

    A maximum of two may attend. The founder should be one of them, but another key team member attending can also be helpful for thinking through the implementation of takeaways.

  • Do I need to attend every session? Can I take turns with others from my company to attend?

    As each session has been carefully designed to help founders build the right foundations for their companies, you should plan to attend all sessions. If you have an unusual situation, please contact us before applying, so that we can advise you appropriately.

  • Does my start-up have to be a digital technology company to apply?

    If you’re not sure your company is “tech” enough, feel free to contact us to clarify.

  • Does my company have to be a “social business” to apply?

    By applying a redemptive framework, we believe all businesses are “social” in that they have to consider the impact their products and services will have on their customers and culture, as well as how they run their business (how they treat their people, how they treat their customers). 

  • Do I need to have been a Christian for a long time to apply?

    We do not equate duration with depth. Instead, we are looking for participants who are teachable, in community with fellow believers, and seeking to live “and seeking to live a life impacted by the gospel.

  • Do my employees all need to be believers for me to qualify?

    Not necessarily. However, a core of like minded Christians is strongly recommended, as the material can be “paradigm shifting” and journeying together to make changes in your company is important.

  • Are scholarships available?

    While we usually encourage all participants to invest in their own growth, do contact us if you are facing unusual challenges.

  • If I’m not sure my company qualifies, can I speak with someone on your team before I apply?

    Most definitely! We welcome enquiries.

Apply

If you have questions we haven’t answered in our FAQs, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@digitalmissionventures.com. If you’re ready to apply, we welcome you to! Apply Here

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