AI, co-living among top growth sectors


Booming sectors: Pedestrians along Orchard Road in Singapore. The Singapore’s Fastest Growing Companies list features 100 local businesses that achieved markedly high revenue growth between 2020 and 2023. — Bloomberg

SINGAPORE: An annual list compiling the 100 fastest-growing companies in Singapore has shown that the majority of businesses on the 2025 list are involved in information technology (IT) and software, financial services or real estate.

Companies from these sectors accounted for approximately 40% of the list compiled by The Straits Times and global research firm Statista.

The companies offer a range of established services, such as wealth management, along with emerging solutions in high demand, such as co-living spaces and artificial intelligence (AI).

The list, released on Jan 21, also included companies in the eCommerce, hospitality and travel, construction, manufacturing and retail sectors, among others.

The Singapore’s Fastest Growing Companies list features 100 local businesses that achieved markedly high revenue growth between 2020 and 2023.

Part of the criteria to be considered is that they must be independent companies headquartered in Singapore with at least S$150,000 of revenue generated in 2020 and S$1.5mil in 2023.

These revenues must also be organic, or generated through the businesses’ own operations and resources, rather than through external means like mergers, acquisitions or partnerships.

Topping the list in 2025 is licensed financial adviser PFPFA, which saw its revenue grow over 48 times from S$500,000 in 2020 to over S$24.3mil in 2023.

The three-year period between 2020 and 2023 coincided with volatile interest rates and changing risk appetites both during and immediately after the pandemic, which likely increased demand for professional wealth planning and financial advice.

Founded in 2020 with just four employees, PFPFA now has 235 staff providing investment services, insurance solutions, and estate and business succession planning, among other services.

One other financial services and technology company in the top 10 for the first time is digital wealth management platform Endowus, which is also authorised to invest monies from the Central Provident Fund and Supplementary Retirement Scheme.

The company grew its revenue by over 13 times to S$8.8mil between 2020 and 2023.

Endowus chief executive Gregory Van noted that the pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital investing, as traditional financial advisers and bank branches were rendered inaccessible during the period.

Singapore investors also began to realise they needed to take control of their own finances, and also had more free time to spend levelling up on personal finance and setting investment goals, Van said.

Endowus, which was founded in 2017, now has more than 100,000 clients, who have collectively achieved over S$500mil in net gains through the platform, according to the company.

“To date, more than 340,000 wealth goals have been created across our discretionary and advised portfolios, bespoke portfolios, and fund investing platform,” Van added.

PFPFA and Endowus are among the 12 financial services and technology firms on the list in 2025, compared with 10 such firms in 2024.

There were more real estate companies in the top 100 list in 2025: six, compared with just three the year before.

While property brokers and agencies such as Propseller, ERA Realty Network and Huttons continued to rank among the fastest-growing businesses in Singapore, 2025 saw two co-living firms, Casa Mia Coliving and The Assembly Place (TAP), emerge among the top 10 on the list.

Co-living is a relatively new housing concept where individuals share a living space, often with common amenities and services to promote community and affordability, but with private rooms.

Casa Mia Coliving, which targets young professionals as its key clientele, saw its revenue surge by around 27 times between 2020 and 2023 to S$5.5mil, while Singapore-based TAP grew its revenue to just over S$15mil over the three-year period, which is up by more than 15 times.

Eugene Lim, who founded TAP in 2019, noted that co-living demand surged after more people became aware of the flexibility it offers.

Under a co-living arrangement, for example, the minimum stay is three months, compared with a traditional rental lease, which requires a commitment of at least one year.

“Co-living is known in the market now and people see it as an accommodation asset class.

“We foresee more younger people wanting to explore co-living as an accommodation alternative due to its flexibility, hassle-free experience and, most importantly, opportunity to meet new people from all walks of life.”

A total of 18 firms in the IT and software sector made it on the list in 2025.

Two, Focus Digital Technology Group and Wiz.AI, were on the list for the first time, ranking second and third on the top 100 list.

Focus Digital Technology, which helps companies manage their cloud infrastructure and cyber-security needs, leveraged growing demand to scale its revenue by over 31 times, from just over S$184,000 in 2020 to over S$6mil in 2023.

This comes as more businesses are realising the need for cloud and cyber-security support to ensure efficient, scalable operations while protecting sensitive data and critical systems from cyber threats.

This also ensures business continuity and regulatory compliance in the current environment. More service providers have also begun tapping AI to save costs and redeploy staff to higher-value roles.

Wiz.AI, which uses generative AI and large language model technologies to create human-like AI agents, or chatbots, to help automate customer interactions for its clients, is among those seeing demand grow.

Between 2020 and 2023, Wiz.AI grew its revenue by almost 27 times to S$12.8mil.

Founded in 2020 with 68 employees, the company had 320 staff on its payroll by 2024 serving customers in banking, insurance, hospitality and eCommerce. — The Straits Times/ANN

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