EY has selected 12 winning start-up participants as part of its fourth cohort of EY Foundry, a dedicated incubation programme for early stage start-ups in the accounting, tax, fintech, legal tech, regulation tech and HR tech space.

Unlike previous years, this cohort will be run virtually and will include participants five other countries, New Zealand Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Sri Lanka in addition to Australia and Singapore.

According to EY, it has received over 270 applications for the programme – the largest to date.

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The fourth cohort begins in early March 2021 and will span across a period of four months.

Participants will receive US$120,000 ($158,443) worth of Microsoft Azure credits, part of the on-going support from Microsoft for start-ups.

Participants will also benefit from a range of EY industry insights and a wealth of EY experience in improving business growth. EY has no equity stake in the participating start-ups, allowing founders to maintain full ownership and control of their businesses.

“The large pool of high calibre start-ups made it extremely difficult to select the winning participants. It is also reflective of the quality of entrepreneurs from across Asean and

Oceania. We’re incredibly excited to begin our journey with the selected participants and we look forward to working together to solve pressing tax, compliance and business efficiency challenges that we and EY clients are facing,” says Patricia Xia, EY Asia-Pacific Tax Innovation Leader.