To thrive in Southeast Asia, startups need to find the right partners

The Southeast Asian startup ecosystem is on a roll. With an increasingly active tech scene and hundred million-dollar funds becoming the new normal, the region is becoming an innovation hub the world should watch.

Geographically strategic, startups in Southeast Asia have access to almost 60 per cent of the world’s population, making the region hugely attractive to companies who want to truly be born global.

But the region is massively diverse – market, business, and geographical landscape – which makes it challenging for startups to enter.
Supporting new tech businesses to succeed locally and regionally from Southeast Asia is the challenge that Techstars took on with the rollout of the Rakuten Accelerator.

Techstars is a worldwide network helping entrepreneurs to succeed, with dozens of mentorship-driven accelerator programmes and thousands of startup programmes running worldwide.

Despite the challenges of the region, they have established a solid presence in Southeast Asia over the past few years.

Pair your strengths with local know-how

Techstars is known globally as a premier accelerator programme and startup community builder – an achievement made because they understand the value of partnerships.

Techstars has also created programs to help large corporations confront the threat of disruption to their businesses faster. By connecting early-stage companies with larger corporations looking for innovative solutions, Techstars is helping startups in our network succeed, while also helping large corporations stay closer and engage earlier and more effectively with disruptive innovations.

So when Techstars entered Southeast Asia, they leveraged on-the-ground knowledge and connections of local partners. They have worked closely with many local groups to run programs such as Startup Weekend and Startup Week since 2010, when they began holding community events in the region, and it only grew from there.

“In 2017, Techstars has ran over 400 community programs throughout the APAC region,” said Oko Davaasuren, Regional Director for APAC of Techstars. “We have, collectively, a base of 500 community leaders who organise and activate their cities around Asia Pacific.”

Their partnership with Rakuten, the Japanese-headquartered global leader in internet services, marked an evolution in their support for startups in Asia. With Rakuten and its chat app Viber, Techstars was able to make bring their global accelerator program into Singapore for the first time.

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Outside of the Rakuten Accelerator, Techstars also work with large corporations to help support their innovation efforts like the #Propup Innovation Bootcamp with MTR in Hong Kong and an internal Innovation Challenge with INFINITI.

And Techstars do not limit their partnerships with the private sector.

“We have collaborated with the Thailand Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA) to organise the largest startup competition of 800 participants. We have also organized our third Mega Startup Weekend in Singapore with the support of GovTech Singapore,” said Davaasuren.

Techstars was also able to do larger ecosystem work with the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) on a three-year engagement that involves bringing and developing entrepreneurial programs to Kuala Lumpur and neighbouring cities in Malaysia, as well as partnered with Thailand’s True Digital and the UNDP.

Understand and anticipate, then apply your strengths

What makes Techstars a success globally is their ability to understand the market that they are expanding into. This is valuable especially for markets or regions like Southeast Asia whose startup ecosystem is fragmented.

The scale of opportunities available in the region may seem overwhelming; it is quite daunting to be faced with the task of expanding across a region whose eleven countries all have different markets, level of technology adoption, and culture. What works for Singapore, for example, is unlikely to work as well in Malaysia or Myanmar.

“Southeast Asia’s [startup] ecosystem creates fertile ground for Techstars to nurture successful entrepreneurs,” said Davaasuren, stating that the economic prospects and level of maturity of both the emerging and upcoming ecosystems of the region makes it a good fit for what Techstars is doing: creating opportunities and facilitating conversations between startups, investors, and corporations.

Take the Rakuten Accelerator, for example. The three-month intensive programme, held in Singapore, attracted startups from all over the world. While the mandate was on startups with focus on innovation around messaging, social, fintech, gaming, or technologies that align with Rakuten’s Viber chat app, a major draw for the companies which applied was gaining access to Southeast Asian markets.

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According to Davaasuren, the global talent attracted to the region through Techstars is beneficial for the whole startup ecosystem, and in turn offers more startups the opportunity and support to gain high growth potential in Southeast Asia.

“We can create an opportunity for regional investors to meet these startups and facilitate conversations between the startups and our corporate partner, to be able to create a much larger regional partnership.”
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Techstars’ first ever, invite-only Demo Day in Asia is happening on October 10th at the National Museum of Singapore. Meet with Techstars, Rakuten Accelerator programme staff, the founders of the first class, mentors, partners, and investors from across the region at the Demo Day After-Party from 7.30pm onwards at Kult Kafe.
Register here.

Disclosure: this article was produced by the e27 content marketing team in collaboration with Techstars

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