Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) celebrated its first cohort’s successful completion of the Global Accelerator Program (GAP) with a Demo Day where startups showcased their smarter and stronger propositions to wow over 100 potential investors.
GAP Demo Day marks the conclusion of a rigorous four month program in which the startups pushed boundaries, faced challenges, and solved problems as they worked to develop the necessary skills, knowledge and network to scale successfully in ASEAN. 44 out of 54 graduating startups from Malaysia, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam presented their stronger and smarter business ideas to a room full of investors, partners, and mentors.
During the program, MaGIC provided participants with benefits worth over USD500,000; industry-specific training, an opportunity to learn from world-class technical and business mentors; a stronger route-to-market focus with extensive corporate support, and partnerships in place with private sector champions such as DiGi, Malaysia Airlines, Media Prima and PETRONAS, as well as a co-working space, accommodation, and monthly stipend.
Ashran Dato’ Ghazi, Chief Executive Officer of MaGIC, said Congratulations to the startups here today for completing the first cohort of GAP! We hope that this experience has helped with your plans to grow and expand across the ASEAN region. Led by our vision to build a strong startup community across ASEAN, we’ve encouraged cross-border knowledge and resource access between GAP participants throughout the program, including the creation of an alumni network to help connect this cohort with previous MAP graduates. The journey to this point has been very rewarding and it is great to see how the startups in Cohort 1 have grown over the duration of the program; we look forward to seeing them achieve greater heights!
“For GAP to be the only Asian accelerator ranked in the top 10 most active accelerators globally speaks volumes about the program and I am proud of the tireless efforts of the entire team in achieving this! I would also like to thank all our mentors, partners, and investors for your dedication and contributions. GAP would not have been possible without your support.” he concluded.
One of MaGIC’s signature programs, GAP is an evolution of the highly popular MaGIC Accelerator Program (MAP). Notably, GAP is recognized for its strong regional focus with industry specific partners and mentors who are committed to the program, and the policy that MaGIC takes no equity from any of the participating startups. GAP was also recently named as the Best Accelerator Program in 2017 during the Malaysia Rice Bowl Startup AWard.
The program initially received 947 applicants from 47 countries, and after an intense competition, 54 startups from 10 countries were selected to undergo four months of rigorous training and insightful mentorship. Participants were shortlisted based on three key criteria: prospect to expand in the ASEAN market, potential of highly scalable products, and readiness for early stage investment. About 67% of GAP Cohort 1 comes from Malaysia and the rest from Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Based on GAP’s nine industry verticals, the majority of the first cohort was led by 23 lifestyle and 10 healthcare startups.
Among the startups that presented at the GAP Demo Day were AllizHealth, Ami, Cafebond, ChubbeeCloud, Direct Lending, Furmingo, Kidxy, Signature Market, Summation and 42Race.
However, applications for the next GAP will open on February 2018 and will run out of the MaGIC Campus in Cyberjaya, Malaysia.
For more information on GAP, visit http://accelerator.mymagic.my/en/gap/
