More than 300 teams apply for JFDI.Asia’s accelerator programme

By Digital News Asia August 2, 2013

First team confirmed is Vault Dragon, which describes itself as ‘Dropbox’ for physical stuff
Applications came from more than a dozen countries around the world, says JFDI.Asia

THE Joyful Frog Digital Incubator (JFDI.Asia) announced that 317 digital business startup teams have applied for its second accelerator programme this year.

The programme is scheduled to start on Aug 29 and the first confirmed participating team is Vault Dragon, led by Singapore locals Tseng Ching-Tse and Vishesh Mittal, JFDI.Asia said in a statement.

Vault Dragon describes itself as “Dropbox for your physical stuff,” bringing storage space to the user, who pays only for the actual space and duration used. The team will be joined on the 100-day ‘ideas-to-investment’ programme by 10-12 other teams, drawn from over 1,400 individuals who have registered an initial interest.

In exchange for a minority stake, every team joining will be offered a package including S$15,000 (US$11,700) net cash, mentoring valued at S$150,000 (US$117,000), technical and other vendor perks worth S$300,000 (US$234,000) and working space for the duration of the programme.
More than 300 teams apply for JFDI.Asia’s accelerator programme
“This will be the third time we’ve run an accelerator programme like this and the quantity and quality of teams applying grows every time,” said JFDI.Asia cofounder and chief executive officer Hugh Mason (pic).

By the end of 2013, JFDI.Asia will have accelerated around 30 startups, of which more than 60% typically secure follow-on funding averaging S$600,000. To date JFDI.Asia startups have closed funding offers over S$4million, a hit rate it claims is not matched by any other early-stage business support programme in Asia.

“It’s going to be really tough making a final selection from the teams that have applied,” said Ray Wu, accelerator manager at JFDI.Asia.

“One way or another, we hope to work with many of the best in future even if we don’t have space for them all now,” he added.

JFDI.Asia said its next accelerator programme attracted interest from around the world. In descending order by country, the programme attracted most attention from Singapore, the United States, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan and Australia, with Korea, Japan and the United Kingdom not far behind.

The proportion of applications from the top countries were, in decreasing order: India (28%), Singapore (23%), the Philippines (7%), Indonesia (6%), Taiwan (4%), Vietnam (4%), the United Kingdom (3%), Malaysia (3%), Thailand (3%), the United States (3%), Australia (2%), Japan (1%) and Hong Kong (1%). Other nations made up less than 1% of applications each.