StartupMalaysia and JFDI.Asia to accelerate winning teams from GSY Asean

• KL to host and fund them, Singapore to bring its knowhow and connections
• GSY Asean brought together 300 young leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs

A PACT between startup ecosystem players from Malaysia and Singapore with an Asean perspective is underway, with StartupMalaysia.org and Joyful Frog Digital Incubator (JFDI.Asia) announcing a partnership.
 
The two parties said that eight startup teams from Asean (the Association of South-East Asian Nations) have begun the JFDI Discover 21-day pre-accelerator programme as part of their prize for winning the Global Startup Youth Asean 2015 (GSY Asean) event held last month in Kuala Lumpur (pic above).
 
On completion of the pre-accelerator programme and further work on the startups, StartupMalaysia.org will select five teams and invest RM25,000 (approximately US$7,000) in each team.
 
The teams will then move to Malaysia for StartupMalaysia.org’s new accelerator programme, The Asian Launchpad, JFDI.Asia said in a statement.
 
In the meantime, JFDI Discover will help the winners connect with budding entrepreneurs from around the world and, together, get familiar with powerful startup tools including Lean Canvas, Pirate Metrics and OKR (Objectives & Key Results).
 
JFDI Discover aims to help startup teams answer key questions that angel investors, accelerators, and government agencies are certain to ask them, such as who their customers are, what problems they are solving, and whether their teams have got what it takes to succeed, JFDI.Asia said.

“The energy I experienced when I first met these young people in Kuala Lumpur was truly inspiring,” said JFDI.Asia chief executive officer Hugh Mason (pic above).
 
“For so long, many entrepreneurs from our region have felt they have to go to Silicon Valley to build businesses that have real scale and impact, but I really sensed a desire from this generation to build success in Asia, for Asia,” he added.
 
GSY Asean brought together 300 young leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs from the 10 Asean countries for three days, in Kuala Lumpur, in March. It was part of the 1Asean Entrepreneurship Summit (1AES) organised by Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance.

“Our vision is to increase the number of fundable startups in the region. To achieve this vision we plan to start by re-engineering the gene pool of startups by putting together founders from different countries to solve a common Asean problem,” said StartupMalaysia.org founder Dhakshinamoorthy ‘Dash’ Balakrishnan (pic above).
 
“We believe this is a good way to scale in Asean as [team members] don’t only bring their insights from their home countries to bear on the startup, but also their connections and know-who which helps navigate the more challenging ecosystem in Asean countries,” he added.
 
1AES was a two-day event which brought together 3,000 entrepreneurs, community leaders and prominent speakers to Kuala Lumpur. The event was held on the sidelines of the Asean Finance Ministers’ Meeting.
 
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