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1. Interview: On Strides Co, Fashion eCommerce, and Building a D2C Business With Alavi Khondoker, Co-Founder and COO, Strides Co
In this wide-ranging interview, Alavi Khondoker gives us a peek behind the scenes of Strides Co, his path to entrepreneurship, the art of growing a fashion-tech company, the early days of building the product, putting together the team and resources, the evolution of Strides Co over the past few years, the state of Strides Co today and its ambition going forward, reflects on why it is critical to concentrate on your startup full-time rather than half-assing it and to have a mindset of doing everything on your own in the early stages of a business, and much more. Link
2. EdTech Startup ROOTs Edu Raises an Undisclosed Pre-Seed Investment Led by Omicon Tech Ventures
ROOTs Edu, a Dhaka-based ed-tech startup focusing on the competitive exams space, announced that it has raised an undisclosed pre-seed investment led by Omicon Tech Ventures. Link
3. SHUTTLE Raises US$750,000 In Seed Investment
Shuttle, a mass-transit startup based in Bangladesh, has raised US$750,000 in a seed round, led by Accelerating Asia. Robi Axiata Limited (r-ventures), Impact Collective (The Ventures, South Korea) and Bangladesh Angels Network (BAN) are some of the investors that participated in the round in addition to angel investors from home and abroad. Link
4. Startup List: 6 Bangladeshi Startups Looking to Transform Trucking Industry
We have seen an influx of new companies in the digital trucking space in the past few years. These are some of the companies we have been following in the space. Link.
Founded in 2017, DoctorKoi offers two services: one, “a prescription writing software that enables doctors to write a prescription with a few clicks and manage their medical practice digitally” and two, online consultation services through its web. The company is now looking into more verticals. We take a look into the competitive landscape of the digital healthcare service where DoctorKoi operates. Link.
6. With Sofol App, iFarmer Aims to Digitize Agriculture and Empower Farmers
Using Sofol, iFarmer can develop a better understanding of farmers, farming, and crops and offer superior advice to farmers using iFarmer’s remote sensing capability to improve yield and profit, connect iFarmer’s supply chain business with the Sofol data, and better plan the supply chain and marketing — in fact, the company can create a marketplace within Sofol directly connecting farmers with others to sell and buy products, create robust credit scoring model, and eventually, bring in other financing partners such as financial institutions, provide better insight to retail investors based on real-time farm data regarding their investments and much more. Link.
Progress Studies 101. Link (h/t Marginal Revolution)
Book I'm enjoying: Apt by Winifred Gallagher. I'm running a new reading experiment: reading 5 books at once on a single subject. MY first subject is focus and attention and how it changes our life. Appears simple but trust me, it is not.
