CYBERJAYA: MALAYSIAN Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), which attracted its highest investment of RM4.6 billion last year, expects to set another record this year.
“Despite the economic challenges, we have seen investments steadily coming in. In fact, I am quite confident we can break the record again,” said MDEC chief executive officer Datuk Yasmin Mahmood in an interview.
As of last year, MDEC attracted RM283 billion of foreign and domestic direct investments, generated RM105 billion of export sales, contributed RM317 billion of revenue to the economy and oversaw the creation of 158,549 jobs.
Yasmin said some 80 per cent of those jobs were filled by Malaysians.
“That’s what we really are doing at MDEC — creating a world-class corridor for tech-driven start-ups while making sure that the rakyat benefit the most from it.”
Yasmin said Malaysia had come a long way since the establishment of Cyberjaya as a technological hub.
“Where once our aim was to develop technological-driven corridors, we now have clusters upon clusters of start-ups trying to make it big in the global digital space. In fact, the growth of digital economy represents 17 per cent of the national gross domestic product. That is substantial already but it’s not the end of the story. That is merely the beginning.”
MDEC, set up in 1996 as Multimedia Development Corp Sdn Bhd, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
Yasmin said so far this year, domestic investments had been stronger than foreign sources and she attributed it to Malaysia’s reputation as a “growth hub for scaleups”.
“Statistics tell us that out of 10 start-ups, only two will survive to become something better. It’s a tough scene, especially so in technology when everything moves at extra speed. Our main concern is to nurture those who survive and that is what we mean from start-up to scale-up.”
Yasmin cites the example of iGene Sdn Bhd, which is in the business of digital autopsy — a procedure conducted by forensic pathologists using high performance computing and a unique set of proprietary algorithms to allow the autopsy to be done without cutting into the deceased’s body.
iGene received RM7.5 million in funding in 2009 from Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd and RM70 million in 2013 from Agensi Inovasi Malaysia.
Recently, iGene signed partnership deals with Australia and New Zealand firms and is looking at expanding into Abu Dhabi, Indonesia, Thailand and Saudi Arabia.
iGene is one of those successful start-ups that changes the way the medical industry looks at medical autopsy. It offers a non-invasive and respectful way for autopsies to be conducted.
“It offers something innovative that we had only seen in movies. I am so proud of this Malaysian startup that is making waves in the global medical industry,” said Yasmin.
There are also other household names such as iProperty, JobStreet and iPay88.
“iProperty, just like JobStreet, was one of the earliest tech start-ups out of Malaysia. It was bought over for US$534 million (RM2.1 billion) by
REA Group, a News Corp subsidiary which owns property sites in Australia, China, the United States and Europe.
“It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, buy-out of a tech firm in Southeast Asia. That’s a remarkably successful story.
“And this is what we at MDEC ultimately want — scale-up the start-ups onto the global stage like iGene, or for them to have remarkably successful exit stories like iProperty,” she said.