These 8 startups formed the second cohort of the Muru-D Singapore accelerator

The graduating startups of Muru-D Singapore’s second cohort. Photo credit: Muru-D.

It’s the second year in Singapore for Australia-born accelerator Muru-D and eight startups formed its second cohort, which graduated yesterday in a demo day event.

The eight companies received seed funding of US$28,000 each, office space in Muru-D Singapore’s office, and access to a network of mentors, industry experts, investors, and technical resources.

The Telstra-backed accelerator has 62 startups in its global portfolio, and operates programs in Sydney, Singapore, Brisbane, and Perth. An international outlook for its startups is a priority, says head of Muru-D Singapore Jamie Camidge, and the accelerator works hard to instill a drive for building global-facing products in participating founders.

See: 9 startups graduate from Muru-D’s first cohort in Singapore

Applications for Muru-D’s third Singapore cohort will open in June. Muru-D Singapore entrepreneur-in-residence Craig Dixon says the team will open up its mandate to later-stage startups as well, looking into deep tech like data analytics, artificial intelligence, and medtech.

From this next cohort and onwards, the accelerator will base its startup funding on Safe notes. SAFE is an acronym for Simple Agreement for Future Equity. With the Safe note, an investor gets the right to buy equity in a company at a later stage, according to specific terms or milestones. It makes fundraising quicker for founders, as it’s less complicated to negotiate. It’s an idea that Y Combinator partner Carolynn Levy came up with in 2013. “Founder-friendly equals investor-friendly,” Jamie says.

Here are the eight startups that graduated the second cohort in Singapore, in alphabetical order:

Amtiss – Indonesia

Amtiss helps mining companies monitor and maintain their heavy equipment with the help of sensors and an online platform. Companies can then respond more quickly to breakdowns and save money on maintenance and operation.

The startup says it has four paid enterprise customers and has generated over US$40,000 in revenue so far.

Checkit – Vietnam

Checkit is a kind of CliffsNotes for non-fiction books. The team condenses the content and presents it in bite-sized offerings, localized for countries that have trouble reading in a foreign language.

The startup says it has 300 titles on its platform and more than 6,000 users, over 500 of which are active daily. Over 400 are paying.

FreightKart – Singapore

FreightKart, as its name betrays, specializes in freight shipping. It’s an online aggregator and price comparison service for small and medium-sized businesses. The startup claims to help them reduce the time needed to plan, book, and ship freight over sea.

Having just gone live in January, FreightKart says it’s signed up 20 users and has 50 vendors from 79 countries on its platform.

Hafta – Malaysia

PlanForFit – Thailand

SeeChat (Winimy) – Singapore

Teman Usaha – Indonesia

Zelos – Indonesia