New cohort of fintechs join SuperCharger's second accelerator in Malaysia

• Participating scaleups come from diverse sub-sectors of fintech 
• SuperCharger makes good on previous year’s claim to grow local fintech ecosystem

TEN international scaleups from six countries have been selected to participate in a 12-week accelerator programme organised by fintech accelerator, SuperCharger. The programme is a result of an ongoing partnership with Allianz Malaysia and the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).

SuperCharger Malaysia general manager Johnny Mayo said that by not taking any equity in the companies that they accelerate, they are able to attract late-stage scaleups who are looking to soft-land in Asia Pacific, choosing Malaysia as their base of operations for regional expansion.

“This neutral position allows us to create win-wins for our cohorts, partners and the ecosystem as a whole,” he said during the launch of the programme at the Securities Commision Malaysia in Bukit Kiara.

Among the ten finalist selected for this year’s programme are MotionsCloud (Germany), Laka (United Kingdom), SalesCandy (Malaysia), Pensieve (India), Perx (Singapore), Prive Technologies (Hong Kong), Heckyl (India), AuditXPRT (United Kingdom), HelloGold (Malaysia) and Curlec (Malaysia).

According to SuperCharger, the cohort collectively has raised over US$25 million (RM103.41 million) to date and boasts of more than 80 corporate clients between them.

“The reality is that financial institutions, because of their processes, need to work with large stage companies,” said SuperCharger’s founder Janos Barberis.

He stressed that it is not the case that SuperCharger is not looking at early-stage companies but with the pressure to produce results within a short 12-week period, they need to work with experienced companies that have a proven track record.

According to Barberis, the selection process for this year’s cohort was stricter as they had to vet over 200 companies from over 32 countries.

A major change in this year’s programme is the inclusion of 10 private open days at leading financial institutions around Kuala Lumpur, all within the space of one week. Here, the scaleups will be able business connections with multiple tier-1 financial organisations where they will undergo open days with several regional banks.

Barberis is confident that these open days will multiply the number of business deals the scaleups would be able to clinch during their time in Malaysia.

The founders of the scaleups will also be put through an Investor Week where all 10 companies will meet and pitch to a number of angel investors and venture capitalists in the Malaysian Venture Capital Association (MVCA)’s network.

SuperCharger faced its own set of challenges last year as it sought to build a fintech ecosystem in the country while convincing international companies that Malaysia was the right place to start expanding into Asean.

The programme will operate out of the DOJO KL co-working space. There will be a Demo Day held on the second day of the SCxSC Fintech Conference 2018, the annual conference organised by the Securities Commision Malaysia, to be held on Nov 28 and 29.

Plans mostly on track

During the tail end of its first accelerator programme in Kuala Lumpur, SuperCharger claimed that it wanted to create 100 jobs in Malaysia, either through SuperCharger itself or one of its own startups.

When asked, Barberis stated that they were already halfway to that objective last year. Though he declined to comment about the exact number of hires, wanting to reserve that announcement for the Demo Day, he stated that they are on track to meet the goal of a 100 hires.

Aside from that, he added that SuperCharger has surpassed its initial goal of training 1,000 individuals in Malaysia on finance and technology. Using an online course, Barberis claimed that so far over 25,000 people have been trained.

He did, however, admit that SuperCharger’s claim of setting up an incubator for early-stage startups has been slightly delayed. They are still working with universities to set up the incubator by the end of the year and will announce more details at a later date.

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