The Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) is going regional with the recent launch of the MaGIC Accelerator Program (MAP), billed as the largest accelerator programme in South East Asia.
Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah, secretary general of the Treasury (Ministry of Finance) and MaGIC chairman who launched the programme on July 27, said its aim was to develop a community of regionally-focused start-ups and build a community of Social Enterprises (SE).
“As chair of Asean this year, we want to capitalise on growing the outreach programme to include others, including those in the rural areas of Laos and Cambodia – by handholding those rural people who also have fantastic ideas,” he added.
Cheryl Yeoh: MaGIC expanding programmes to cover Asean to foster regional start-ups region. (Image credit: MaGIC)
MaGIC CEO, Cheryl Yeoh, said the focus for 2014 was on building the local start-up community and ecosystem. This year, however, it is expanding its programmes to cover Asean to foster start-ups in the region.
MAP has two parallel tracks – the Asean Startup track and the Social Enterprise (SE) track. Over 1,000 applications were submitted and only 7% made it through to the final selection.
Seventy-seven startups and Social Enterprise – 52 from the Asean track and 25 from the SE track) – are selected for MAP Cohort 1. Modeled after Startup Chile, the programme runs from July 27 to November 28.
The Asean track focuses on building regional start-ups to prepare them to be investment-ready in four months. Participants under this track are from Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, United States of America, Uruguay and Vietnam.
A Demo Day will be held at the end of the programme with about 500 Malaysian, regional and global investors and partners. Among them are Khailee Ng of 500 Startups, Erman Akinci of Catcha Group, Aziz Hussein of Cradle Seed Ventures, Jamaludin Bujang of Mavcap and Tim Marbach of Asian Venture Group.
The Asean track has a strong line of route to market partners such as Axiata, Tune Talk, Digi, Macrokiosk, Accenture, Maybank, Netccentric, Appota, Smart DevNet, BCARD, Cyberview, AIS Startup and YES for startups with a strategic fit.
MAP, the largest accelerator programme in South East Asia.
The SE track is only for Malaysian start-ups. It is the first social enterprise programme in the country that aims to accelerate and develop bold new ideas to help address social or environmental issues, improve lives and build a sustainable environment.
Each social enterprise under the SE track will receive a seed funding of RM30,000 (US$7,790) to develop their ideas. Among the mentors of this track are Mark Gilmour of Virgin Group, Yap Mun Ching of Air Asia Foundation, Rahayu Ramli of Google and Julia Chong of the Truly Loving Company.
At the end of the programme participants will pitch their ideas at Demo Day, which will be held in conjunction with “Destination: GOOD, Asean Social Enterprise in KL”, an event hosted by AirAsia, Think City, and MaGIC.
MaGIC has also negotiated for perks worth over US$400,000 per start-up from Google Developers Launchpad, Microsoft, Microsoft BizSpark, Evernote, Elance oDesk, Amazon Web Services, Piktochart, 123RF, Stock Unlimited, Billplz, Netizen Testing, Exabytes, Easyparcel, and SoftLayer for MAP participants.
“The success of the programme will be evident when these entrepreneurs are able to grow their start-up or social enterprise, and raise funding from private investors or sustain their businesses after demo day,” said Yeoh.
Distro Doji, an accelerator programme for ASEAN growth-stage startups. (Image credit: MaGIC)
Apart from MAP, MaGIC has also partnered with Silicon Valley based seed investor, 500 Startups, to launch Distro Doji, a 10-week accelerator programme. It brings experts in customer acquisition, “growth hacking”, and distribution to work with ASEAN growth-stage start-ups to exceed their customer/user growth goals.
Participants in Distro Doji will receive US$50,000 worth of funding from 500 Startups, of which US$25,000 is available for marketing to spur growth, and US$25,000. Application for this programme is now open with details on its website.
• MaGIC was set up on April 15, 2014 with the aim to make Malaysia the start-up capital of Asia by nuturing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country and increasing the number of high-growth start-ups that will succeed on a regional and global scale. It was officially launched by President Barack Obama on April 27 during his visit to Malaysia and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. It is located in Cyberjaya, which is part of the country’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative.
• Featured image credit (start-ups): Rawpixel/iStock
