Over a hundred Malaysian startups launch deals site to showcase ‘Malaysia boleh’

Malaysia has been grabbing headlines for all the wrong reasons in the last few weeks. The Wall Street Journal reported US federal prosecutors have filed a lawsuit to seize more than US$1 billion in assets they believe were siphoned off the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad fund or 1MDB. At the center of the scandal is Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who’s accused of pocketing US$731 million from the fund, according to The New York Times.

To counter the unfortunate turn of events, some 130 Malaysian startups have come together to bring a little positivity into the news cycle by launching Project Merdeka, an initiative to “celebrate Malaysian entrepreneurship in the spirit of Malaysia boleh (which loosely translated means ‘Malaysia can do it’).”

Driven by Unicroach – a community of the top founders and ecosystem enablers in Malaysia, Project Merdeka is a site offering deals from 130 startups like stock photo library 123RF, ride-hailing app Grab, fitness class booking site KFit, video streaming site iFlix, ecommerce company Lazada, and many more. The deals across fashion, food and beverage, and travel and other services will run from today until Hari Malaysia (Malaysia Day) on September 16. The period also covers Malaysia’s Independence Day, which is celebrated on August 31.

“We’re doing this to showcase the Malaysia boleh attitude amidst all the 1MDB and political issues we face as a country. Merdeka means independence,” explains Warren Leow, a former executive of Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre who’s now with 123RF and runs Unicroach.

“For the first time in the history of our country, local tech startups have put their industry differences aside and united for a common goal – to give back to the community and work together for a greater cause,” adds VLT Labs head of product Serene Gan, who leads the initiative along with Warren.

Any Malaysian startup can submit deals to go live as long as there’s commitment to jointly market the initiative, Warren says.

“This is 100 percent free. There’s no commission and no participation fee. Users click through directly to startups or just apply the discount code ‘MERDEKA’.”

He says they will track sales and release the data soon.

The group doesn’t plan on bringing down the site once the promo period ends. “We’ll make this a yearly thing,” notes Warren.