- Accelerating Asia, the Singapore-based international accelerator VC for pre-Series A startups, has unveiled its fourth cohort of startups today, deepening its presence in the region.
- The 11 new portfolio companies cover ten verticals and include companies from Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. New industry verticals include property, online dating, and marketing/advertising.
Bangladeshi startups have been a regular presence in Accelerating Asia. This year is no different. This year out of 11 startups in the cohort, 4 are from Bangladesh.
- Amar Lab partners with top local and international diagnostic labs to provide end-to-end diagnostics test services from sample collection to testing to report delivery directly from customers' premises, saving time, money, and hassle for patients. To date, Amar Lab has served over 10,000 diagnostic tests and is providing COVID tests for individuals and corporate clients.
- DoctorKoi is a health-tech company offering prescription writing software that allows a doctor to write a prescription from a database of 27,000 medications within just a few clicks. DoctorKoi works with over 1300 doctors, partners with top pharmaceutical companies, and has processed over 2.6M digital prescriptions.
- HandyMama is the first and leading professional cleaning and handyman services platform in Bangladesh, connecting customers with trustworthy and verified service providers through a mobile app, web app, and call center. HandyMama has helped over 100,000 households while employing over 500 people full-time and 3000 part-time. Their vision is to serve 1M households by 2025.
- SWAP is the first cross-category exchange platform for users to sell or swap their old phone, laptop, car, motorcycle, furniture in just 24 hours. Working as a C2B marketplace, SWAP has established buyback partnerships with Samsung, OnePlus, OPPO, Apple, and Suzuki. With over 25,000 clients served in 12 months, SWAP has helped to save 36 metric tons of e-waste and 694 metric tons of carbon emissions.
Bullish on Bangladesh: We have seen a consistently high intake of Bangladeshi startups in Accelerating Asia’s accelerator program. The accelerator program accepted two startups from Bangladesh in its first cohort, the second cohort saw a steep rise of Bangladesh companies to five startups, the third cohort had one Bangladesh startup, and this year, the number goes up to four companies.
Dhaka’s startup scene has seen accelerated growth in the last few years. The consistent interest from players like Accelerating Asia suggests that Bangladesh is producing increasingly high-quality startups on a regular basis.
Update on 13 April at 12 pm: An initial version of the report missed to include SWAP. It has been update.
