Maslin Capital, the Dhaka-based venture capital firm, has just announced that it is planning to raise fund. As part of its fund raising drive, it has signed an agreement with DEFTA Partners, a US-based venture capital firm who will help Moslin in raising investment and will also provide technical support in investing in early stage companies in Bangladesh. Maslin has been in the mode of fund raising for a while now.
Founded by Lt General Abdul Hafiz, ndc, psc (Retd) and Wali-ul-Maroof Matin, Maslin is one of the active VC firms in the dhaka’s fast-growing startup ecosystem. The company plans to invest in tech, health and agriculture-related startups. However, it has not invested in any local startup yet.
DEPTA Partners, on the hand, has experience of investing in Bangladesh. It has invested in BPCL, a local startup that recycles discarded plastic bottles to produce PET resins.
Startup ecosystem in Bangladesh has been seeing a steady growth over the past couple of years. After the Alternative Investment Framework, which allows venture capital firms and HNPs to invest in non-listed companies, there is already a slowly growing alternative investment ecosystem in the country. Moreover, investments in early stage tech and non-tech startups are also happening at a slow pace as well. For instance, BD Venture one of the earliest VC firms in the country and IPE Capital invested in Brain Station-23 early this year, Aavishkaar, an Indian fund invested in CloudWell last year and there are other examples as well [you may see data of recent startup investments here].
Now it is a good sign for the nascent alternative investment ecosystem of the country that venture capital firm like Maslin Capital is gearing up for raising investment to invest in the early stage startups.
