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At the end of the 4-month intensive bootcamp, two selected startups will each receive up to US$40,000 in seed funding

Digi CEO Albern Murty and Head (Postpaid & Digital Services) Praveen Rajan, with Malaysia’s startups at the launch of Digi Accelerate

Telecom company Digi has launched an accelerator programme with an aim to strengthen efforts in supporting and developing the Malaysian startup scene.

Christened Digi Accelerate, the initiative will accelerate two startups in building entrepreneurship fundamentals and fast-tracking their development, positioning them for long-term success globally.

The 4-month programme will be held in Bangkok, where the two selected Malaysian startups will get an opportunity to work alongside their counterparts from Thailand and Myanmar, gain experience from workshops with Silicon Valley experts and one-on-one mentoring with qualified, successful startup entrepreneurs from the region. For the same, Digi has partnered with its regional Telenor counterparts (dtac in Thailand and Telenor in Myanmar).

The bootcamp will also give the startups an opportunity to pitch to global and regional venture capitalists, and potential commercialisation opportunities with Digi and Telenor Group.

The accelerator is basically looking for early-stage ventures in financial services, M2M and Internet of Things, education, music, video and gaming, healthcare, fitness and wellness, communications, productivity and cloud services, security, travel, logistics or e-commerce.

Startups can submit their application here. Submissions for business proposals are open until 17 April 2016, after which a selection of top 12 teams will be announced on April 22 and advance to Pitch Day on April 28. The final selected two startups will win up to RM100,000 (US$40,000) in seed funding each, and attend Digi Accelerate’s four-month intensive bootcamp from May to August 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand.

(L to R) Praveen Rajan, Albern Murty, Eugene Teh (Digi’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer

“Malaysia has a lot of entrepreneurial talent and energy which is encouraging for a country aspiring to become a digital nation. Startups are key to our digital future. Given the right conditions for growth, they can become some of the largest, most successful companies of our time and this means big business as they contribute to innovation, new tech, job creation, economic growth and continuously change the way we live,” said Digi ECO Albern Murty.

“With Digi Accelerate, our focus is to expose startups to methods of entrepreneurship, with structured coaching and mentoring so that on graduation day, our founders have the knowledge and tools to keep improving and evolving, which is needed in today’s constantly changing market. We look forward to seeing the digital disrupt they will create, and market globally,” he added.

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