Malaysian telco Digi announces plan to fund three local startups to scale up
Startup graduates from Digi Accelerate programme secure more than US$61,880 funding to scale up their businesses
Praveen Rajan, Digi’s Chief Digital Officer who heads up the telco’s innovation lab, Digi-X (fourth from the left), pictured here with ambitious Malaysian startups GrabGas, Vase and Local Usher at Digi Accelerates’ Demo Day finale in Bangkok
Malaysia-based Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd (Digi) today announced it will be investing more than RM250,000 (US$61,880) in equity funding in GrabGas, Local Usher and Vase.
Last Friday, the three startups graduated from the company’s maiden accelerator programme, Digi Accelerate. The programme closed with a Demo Day held in Bangkok, which saw the startups join teams from Myanmar and Thailand in a competitive pitch session to 65 local and international venture capitalists.
More on the three startups:
Local Usher – Local Usher is a platform to discover and book unique recreational experiences in Malaysia. The startup is now looking to expand into ASEAN.
GrabGas – GrabGas is a web and smartphone-based on-demand cooking gas delivery service which addresses a real gap in Malaysia.
Vase – Vase is a centralised portal for conducting surveys and providing actionable on-demand insights for its clients.
Also Read: MaGIC, Uber and Digi join forces to launch an ideation lab in Malaysia
During the Digi Accelerate bootcamp in Bangkok, the three teams spent four months learning from Silicon Valley experts, receiving direct mentorship from established regional technopreneurs and pitched to global and regional venture capitalists.
“They have done a lot of work in the past four months to validate their business models, and now the real challenge is to be single-minded on building a repeatable, scalable and sustainable business beyond borders. The ambition should be to build traction and generate revenue in the first year – then they’re on to something potentially big,” said Praveen Rajan, Digi’s Chief Digital Officer, who heads up Digi-X, the telco’s innovation lab exploring new digital services.
Praveen said that Digi-X will continue to provide both funding and hands-on support for these ambitious startups; enabling a conducive support system to grow their businesses, which includes commercialisation opportunities with Digi and Telenor, tapping into 200 million potential customers globally.
Based in Kuala Lumpur, Digi-X was launched in June 2016 and is Digi Telecommunications’ innovation lab exploring the digital unknown to create new digital services. Digi-X’s mission is to create new products and ventures that inspires and impacts people’s digital lives.
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Image Credit: Digi
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