The National Innovation Agency (NIA) will consider establishing a private equity trust of 1 billion baht to unlock opportunities for startup growth in the global market and to boost working capital for innovation-based enterprises (IBEs).
The move is aimed at accelerating Thailand becoming a so-called "innovation nation".
By 2027, the NIA expects to have 10,000 IBEs, 1,000 growth enterprises and a 10-billion-baht impact from its overall activities.
"We will utilise our strength in ecosystem partnerships and connection as the focal conductor to accelerate Thailand's innovation system, which is worth 100 billion baht," said Krithpaka Boonfueng, NIA executive director.
In fiscal 2025, the NIA received 1.3 billion baht for funding and operations.
It will continue its strategies of grooming capable startups, granting support to target industries and fostering the growth of IBEs and startups, she added.
"We will seek the NIA board's approval to amend regulations to allow the agency to invest directly in startups, which will attract other venture capitalists and corporate venture capitalists to co-invest with us."
The NIA is waiting for the Startup Act to come into force by 2025.
Ms Krithpaka added that the agency would consider establishing an NIA venture that might act as a holding entity to invest in startups or act as a private equity trust.
The trust would need a 1-billion-baht fund initially and would invest for eight years in the startups and IBEs at series A level funding and above.
The NIA aims to have two unicorn startups, mainly from government support and a total of three unicorns within five years.
Thailand currently has three unicorns, all having been developed independently by private organisations.
"We will consider [venture] models from many countries such as Singapore's Temasek. Over the next 5-6 years we will expand to invest in startups overseas to access high-value technologies," she added.
The NIA has also developed a startup acceleration programme in four areas -- food technology, agricultural technology, health technology and climate technology.
In addition, the NIA emphasises the use of data to drive the innovation system through the "Thailand Innovation Portal" platform, which has over 90,000 innovation data items and over 3,600 users.
Sura-at Supachatturat, deputy executive director of Innovation Development, said the NIA recently offered a new Recoverable Fund, worth 50 million baht, for nascent startups and those in the pre-series A in business expansion and market scale up.
"This fund will be returned to the government to reinvest in other startups."
The fund will invest not more than 10 million baht in each startup within five years, while the NIA's investor partners would contribute the same amount.
"We already invested over 141 million baht [32.2 million baht from the NIA and 109 million baht from investor partners] in seven startups, expecting a business value of over 1.7 billion baht," said Mr Sura-at.
The NIA will embrace AI to approve related documents in the process from weeks to a single day. It will use blockchain technology to pay digital money as funding to the startups. It will also participate in the Central Bank Digital Currency project.
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Pariwat Wongsamran, deputy executive director of Innovation System, said the NIA will push local startups to the global market, despite several challenges in the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and also an increase in import tax due to the tech war.
Asian startups are looking at Thailand as a gateway to the Southeast Asian market, and this could lead to joint ventures and partnerships with Thai startups.
Ms Krithpaka said this year the NIA would join with partners and banks to increase startups' working capital. The NIA will subsidise the interest rate for at least 75% of the startups in its network.