The startups from both from the Asean and Social Entreprise (SE) Tracks of the MaGIC Accelerator Program (MAP) first cohort has raised a collective MYR17 million ($4.25 million) since graduating from the accelerator in November last year.
The seed to Series A fundings were achieved in the past four months among 15 startups. Of that, MYR16 million was raised among the those under the Asean Track..
“Naturally, investments don’t close overnight. Lead generation is definitely there, but this is to-date, essentially,” MaGIC chief executive officer Ashran Ghazi commented during a press conference after launching the second cohort of MAP on Thursday.
MAP is run by the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC), and is the largest Southeast Asia-focused accelerator.
This time around, MAP received over 700 applications for this cohort, with only 11 per cent of that making it through for Cohort 2.
There are 50 startups were enrolled in Asean Track while 24 joined the SE Track.
Of the 50 startups under the Asean Track, 62 per cent were Malaysian while the others foreign.
The startups come from Malaysia, China, India, Denmark, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, Korea, Sweden, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam this time.
The Social Enterprise Track is only opened to Malaysian startups.
“We had interest from as far as Denmark and Sweden earlier, but we were not ready then to take them in then so we had slated them for Cohort 2. Now we have expanded our intake to more countries. There’s a misconception that the Asean Track is only for Asean-based startups but it is actually for Asean-focused startups, regardless of where they are from,” MaGIC entrepreneurship development executive director Johnathan Lee told DEALSTREETASIA.
For Cohort 2, the accelerator has also fine tuned the curriculum for both tracks to enhance the programme.
“For the Asean Track, from the last cohort we realised that a lot of the startups were good at product development and were technically savvy but don’t spend enough time polishing themselves as entrepreneurs. This time, from day one, we will focus on polishing up their communication and presentation skills,” Lee said, adding that there are some minors changes to the curriculum.
“This year fine tune so that the bulk of the startups will benefit from the curriculum rather than a select few. We have a diverse group of startups, from e-commerce, to marketplace, mobile apps, services, software and hardware, internet of things and artificial intelligence also,” he added.
MaGIC social enterprise executive director Ehon Chan commented on the adjustments to the SE track for this cohort, to focus on very early-stage social entrepreneurs.
“We went from people who had only ideas on paper, to those were already had social enterprises running. We found that those in the more mature stage didn’t grow as much as we’d want them to because there were more of those who were trying to get their social enterprises up and running. So this time we want to focus on the core and the tipping point for a movement towards social entrepreneurship. To do that we need a critical mass of successful social enterprises, so we wil focus on ideas on papers and getting them into social enterprises,” he said.
MaGIC is also running the Amplify Awards targeted at growth stage social enterprises.
Cohort 2 runs from May 4 to August 14 this year, while Cohort 3 will commence some time in August.
Application for Cohort 3 is still open, until May 9.
Also read:
MaGIC has completed its MVP phase, now on to scaling up: Ashran Ghazi
MaGIC ASEAN accelerator programme MAP to groom regional startups
Malaysia: MaGIC SE Amplify Awards gives $300k to 9 social entrepreneurs
MaGICal touch: Yeoh on building Malaysia’s startup ecosystem
