MaGIC Accelerator Programme Cohort 2 Kicks Off 2nd Intake Of 74 Startups

CYBERJAYA (Malaysia), May 5 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) Accelerator Programme (MAP) welcomes its second intake of 74 startups and social entrepreneurs from ASEAN and beyond. Malaysia's Treasury Secretary-General Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah said the MAP Cohort 2 participants, which were made up of 50 startups from the ASEAN track and 24 from the social enterprise track, would undergo coaching to build their business and networking. He said the MAP Cohort 2 ran on two parallel tracks, offering a cohesive knowledge-sharing platform to selected entrepreneurs to foster relationship and achieve a regional outlook, access regional resources and peer knowledge exchange. "Through this programme, we hope to create more companies in Malaysia, with financing agencies providing an initial startup-fund to them. "We (Malaysia) are ahead in the number of companies, but low on investment. This is our hope to educate financing agencies to be more open to initial funding to prevent companies migrating to a neighbouring country for financing assistance," he told reporters after launching the MAP ASEAN Track Cohort 2 here Thursday. Dubbed as the largest accelerator programme in Southeast Asia, the programme will accelerate startups to be investment-ready in four months, and to build a strong ASEAN startup community by cultivating ASEAN relationship. Meanwhile, MaGIC Chief Executive Officer Ashran Gazi said of the 74 startups, 60 per cent were Malaysians while the rest were from China, India, Denmark, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. He said MAP was an unified platform that brought startups and social enterprises together to build and grow their business while leveraging on the tools, resources, global mentors, corporate partners, regional investors and community. "This programme was developed to build the next generations of ASEAN startups and a pioneering group of social enterprises, with the hope that more entrepreneurs will participate in the upcoming MAP intakes," he said, adding that 1,167 applications were received for the ASEAN and social enterprise tracks. --BERNAMA