PRAN-RFL has been investing in a growing and diverse retail universe, quietly amassing an unparalleled distribution power. That is our Insight story from last week. Owning distribution is a particular kind of power in business. While product plays a critical role in the success of a company, without distribution even the best products can fail. Read the story to learn more.
In a deep dive on Goofi Books, we examine how the company cracked the children's book publishing in Bangladesh. However, the more interesting aspect of its story is why books make such a powerful foundational layer and how Goofi has found a formula to build an expanding universe on the back of books.
Most HubSpot partners take years to reach Platinum status. Hubxpert, the Dhaka-based global Hubspot and digital transformation agency, did it in seven months. It has built a global software services business with 95% international clients, zero external capital, and a starting budget of just 10 lakh taka. In less than two years, the company has grown from a small office with four employees to a 26-person operation handling over 100 HubSpot implementations for clients across the globe. In this long form story, we examine what helped.
Edtech company Hulkenstein has built a growing business on the back of a counterintuitive model: going hybrid from day one, bridging digital platforms with physical services. What’s interesting about its journey and rise?
And finally, our story on healthtech company CliniCall looks into the company’s plans to make quality healthcare accessible to more people in Bangladesh.
Links to all stories are below.
Ask any local manufacturer trying to get their products into the countless mom-and-pop shops that dot Bangladesh's retail landscape. The competition is fierce. The margins are thin. And the gatekeepers of distribution hold most of the cards. A growing power in this retail landscape is an unusual name: PRAN-RFL Group. One of Bangladesh’s largest conglomerates, the group now operates over 3,000 retail outlets across the country under seven different brands. Best Buy alone has more than 350 stores. Vision Emporium boasts 278. RFL Exclusive has exploded to nearly 2,000 outlets. A fascinating development that can shape Bangladesh’s retail and FMCG landscape in years to come. Retail is going through a dramatic shift in Bangladesh. An emergent modern retail and QSR boom is quickly reshaping the retail landscape. PRAN is one of the more important players leading this surge.
Goofi, formally launched in 2019, made a strategic decision to begin with story and activity books. It was a move with sophisticated strategic thinking. Books enjoy a cultural power in every market. Parents, teachers, and educational institutions see books as serious educational tools. This unique cultural power and authority of books instantly made the company a legitimate player in the educational space. More importantly, books function as what platform strategists call elastic content. You can adapt books into multiple formats: audiobooks, animated series, live performances, and merchandise. This elasticity makes books the perfect foundation for building a broader media ecosystem. The insight here is about choosing the right foundation layer. Bhuiyan recognized that content quality and credibility were more important to expand.
Most HubSpot partners take years to reach Platinum status. Hubxpert did it in seven months. The Dhaka-based company achieved something incredibly challenging: building a global software services business with 95% international clients, zero external capital, and a starting budget of just 10 lakh taka. In less than two years, the company has grown from a tiny office with four employees to a 26-person operation handling over 100 HubSpot implementations for clients across the globe and has carved out a niche in the hyper-competitive world of CRM solutions and digital transformation. Software services companies are inherently hard to build well. The fundamental challenge is that success depends on several variables that are difficult to control: talent quality, talent retention, and service consistency. Hubxpert's story shows that you can hack these challenges and produce results.
We are excited to announce the launch of "You Are What You Eat: Bangladesh Food and Health Report 2025," our comprehensive new white paper that examines the critical relationship between food systems, dietary habits, and health outcomes in Bangladesh. The report, produced jointly by Khaas Food and Future Startup, offers an in-depth understanding of how food fundamentally shapes health and why this connection demands greater public and policy focus. It addresses key challenges including rising food safety concerns, increasing demand for safe and natural food, and the emergence of a dedicated safe food industry.
Read our announcement and download the full report for free here.
Hulkenstein's founders made a counterintuitive bet: instead of going fully digital like many other players, they would build a hybrid ecosystem that combined the best of both worlds. Students could access online courses and interactive content when connectivity allowed, but they could also rely on physical books, printed materials, and offline resources when it didn't. It reflected a deeper understanding of how learning actually happens in Bangladesh's diverse educational landscape. Some concepts are better learned through video explanations. Others require the focused attention that comes from reading physical text. Assessment needs to happen both in digital formats for immediate feedback and gamification and in traditional formats to prepare for government exams that still largely happen on paper.
Bangladesh faces a healthcare accessibility crisis that mirrors challenges across much of the developing world. With over 170 million people served by just 134,568 registered physicians—a ratio of roughly 7 doctors available for every 10,000 people, significantly below the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended ratio of 22.8 doctors per 10,000 population (Bangladesh Health Bulletin, 2022). Geographic barriers compound this challenge, as 65% of the population lives in rural areas where specialist care can be hours or days away. This is where CliniCall, a Dhaka-based health-tech company that's taking a uniquely localized approach to telemedicine while maintaining global standards of care, comes in. The company aims to become Bangladesh’s response to the growing need for accessible and affordable healthcare.
