Bangladeshi startups MedEasy, Markopolo, and Shuttle receive investments from Accelerating Asia

• Accelerating Asia, the Singapore-based international accelerator VC targeting pre-Series A startups in the region, announced its sixth cohort of startups yesterday.  
• The cohort features nine startups and has a market presence in 10+ countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, North America, and Europe and covers 8 verticals including proptech, marketplace, fintech, logistics, services, eCommerce, and healthtech. 
• The new cohort has two companies from Bangladesh: MedEasy and Markopolo and another Bangladeshi transportation startup Shuttle has received follow-on investment.
• Accelerating Asia, which started off as an accelerator program aimed at backing high-growth early-stage startups in the region in 2019, has slowly been making a transition. The company started making follow-on investments into its portfolio companies in 2021. This year, it has made follow-on investments into four existing portfolio startups. Last year, Bangladeshi startup iFarmer received additional funding from Accelerating Asia. 

Accelerating Asia, the Singapore-based VC accelerator, has announced its latest round of investments into 13 startups: including nine new companies joining the sixth cohort of its accelerator program and additional capital into four existing portfolio companies. 

This year, 3 Bangladeshi startups have received investments from Accelerating Asia. Two companies, Markopolo and MedEasy, received funding as part of its cohort six and another company, Shuttle, has received a follow-on funding.  

Bangladeshi startups have been a regular presence in Accelerating Asia. For example, in last year's cohort five, three Bangladeshi startups received investment from the program, the previous cohort four, we saw four Bangladeshi startups out of eleven. 

The three Bangladeshi startups that have received investment this year are: 

Markopolo.AI is a martech SaaS platform built for the cookieless era that automates campaign creation and management in Social and Search Ad platforms. It helps users launch targeted ads in minutes, find the perfect creative and AI-powered copy, schedule posts ahead of time to save time, and get real-time analytics on how well they perform. Markopolo was the winner of She Loves Tech Bangladesh and has grown monthly revenue 30% in month 1 of the Accelerating Asia program.

MedEasy is a leading online pharmacy and digital health platform which aims to make the lives of 30 million+ chronic patients of Bangladesh easier. MedEasy provides doctor video consultations and medicine home delivery. With 75,000 users and 100+ doctors registered on the platform, MedEasy has served more than 20,000 medicine orders and has seen a 16X revenue growth in 2021 and 22X revenue growth compared Q1 2022 to Q1 2021.

Shuttle, an existing portfolio company of Accelerating Asia, has received a follow-on investment. Shuttle is a B2C and B2B transport-tech company focused on making daily commutes convenient & affordable for middle-income people in developing countries. It groups 4-10 people together in sedans or mini-vans and charges less than one-third of the price of regular ride-sharing services. There is also a women-only option for female commuters. Shuttle is projected to double yearly revenue in 2022 and has B2B clients including Standard Chartered and HSBC.

Bangladeshi startups are increasingly becoming a common presence in the regional accelerator programs. Accelerating Asia has played an important role in finding and highlighting high-growth Bangladeshi startups since its inception in 2019. Last year and this year, we have seen Iterative, another Singapore-based accelerator program, selecting several Bangladeshi startups for its program. 

These programs have helped startups in Dhaka to attract greater attention from regional investors. As Dhaka's startup ecosystem grows, more companies will go to these international programs for access to early capital, know-how, and network.