CYBERJAYA: Having developed an ecosystem of entrepreneurs on homeground, the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) is now going regional.
Treasury secretary general Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah, who is chairman of the centre, yesterday launched the MaGIC Accelerator Program (MAP) – which is its largest accelerator programme in the region.
The programme, he said, intends to develop a community of regionally-focused startups 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 said at the event which was held at the MaGIC campus.
Seventy-seven startups and Social Enterprise (52 from the Asean track and 25 from the Social Enterprise track) are selected for MAP Cohort 1.
A total of 166 participants will be building their high-growth startups and Social Enterprises at MaGIC, over the next 4 months.
MAP consists of two parallel tracks, namely the Asean Startup track and the Social Enterprise (SE) track. Over 1,000 applications were submitted for MAP and only 7per cent of these applications made it through to the final selection.
Participants under the Asean track hail from Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, Uruguay and Vietnam.
The Social Enterprise track is the first social enterprise programme in the country that aims to accelerate and develop bold new ideas that will help address social or environmental issues, improve lives and build a sustainable environment.
MaGIC CEO Cheryl Yeoh said the focus last year was on building the local startup community and ecosystem and this year it has moved on to grow more regionally-focused startups.
The success of the programme will be evident when these entrepreneurs are able to grow their startup or social enterprise, and raise funding from private investors or sustain their businesses after demo day, she said.
Modeled after Startup Chile, the first intake or Cohort 1 will run from July 27 to November 28.
The programme is fully funded by the Malaysian government and operates out of the MaGIC Campus in Cyberjaya.
Effective from 2016, there will be two intakes per year and the next round of applications is expected to open in December 2015.
Another differentiating factor that sets MAP apart from other accelerator programs in the region is that no equity will be taken by MaGIC from the selected entrepreneurs.
MaGIC has also negotiated for perks worth over US$400,000 per startup 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.
Asean Track also 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.
While working on developing their businesses, the startups will have access to world-class mentors, instructors and the opportunity to establish route-to-market partners.
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