10 startups that caught our eye at Southeast Asia’s largest demo day

Malaysia’s MaGIC Accelerator Program (MAP) held its demo day this week where 50 startups from across Southeast Asia and 25 Malaysian social enterprises showcased their business ideas to investors and the media for the first time. It was the region’s largest D-day so far, having gathered over 150 investors in one room.

What was striking about the event wasn’t just that it was huge. It was that you could see how everyone was eagerly looking forward to the startups – as the first presenter took the stage, people were ready with their pens and notebooks, all eyes and ears. Perhaps this is because the accelerator program is unusual in that it focuses on creating regional startups.

“This program was modelled after Chile,” said MaGIC CEO Cheryl Yeoh. “We didn’t want to copy what Silicon Valley is doing. Chile is like Malaysia, traditionally dependent on natural resources. It is in the midst of Latin America, just as Malaysia is in the midst of Southeast Asia. We wanted to play the regional aspect of it.”

“And what we learned from Chile is when they opened up their borders, the local entrepreneurs learned from the most successful entrepreneurs overseas, who came to Chile to found companies,” she continued. “The cultural mingling and connections really raised the profile of local entrepreneurs. That’s the one, single lesson: if we want to up the game, we can’t just be creating a program for Malaysian entrepreneurs, we want a global program [that] puts Malaysia on the map.”

Plucked out of a pool of a thousand applications from over 20 countries globally, the 50 ASEAN-focused startups that presented are targeting the regional market of 650 million people, while the 25 social enterprises are looking at social and environmental issues.

The startup teams spent the last four months at the MaGIC Campus in Malaysia’s tech hub Cyberjaya, where they underwent rigorous mentoring and training to build and grow their products and make them investment-ready.

By demo day, Cheryl said most of the startups have seen significant growth, with some recording revenue in excess of US$3 million per year. Close to 20 percent of them have also raised funding, exceeding expectations.

After talking to a lot of investors in attendance, we’ve picked out our favorites in this first batch of MAP startups. It was tough since all of them are promising, but here’s our list (in no particular order):

BloomThis

Whether you want to surprise a loved one or simply design your home or workplace, BloomThis is your wingman.

The Malaysian startup wants to change the whole experience of sending and receiving flowers. It delivers specially handpicked flowers in a bespoke box with an element of surprise every Thursday. You will only know the flowers of the week the moment you unbox them.

Why Thursday? BloomThis founder Giden Lem said most of the imported flowers arrive in Malaysia on Wednesdays. Doing the deliveries the next day guarantees that the flowers will last three times longer than if they had been stored in a shop.

Door2Door Doctor

AZStack

iKargo

UniSTAY

SPOT News

Katsana

Money Lover

TableApp

Mobile9