Accelerating Asia, the Singapore-based VC accelerator, has announced its latest round of investments including nine new companies joining Cohort 6 of its flagship program and additional capital into four existing portfolio companies.
The new cohort has two companies from Bangladesh: MedEasy and Markopolo and another Bangladeshi transportation startup Shuttle has received follow-on investment. The new investments take Accelerating Asia’s portfolio to 52 startups that have raised a total of over US$42M.
In an announcement, the company says, Cohort 6 startups have a market presence in 10+ countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, North America, and Europe and cover 8 verticals including proptech, marketplace, fintech, logistics, services, eCommerce, and healthtech. The nine new startups also include 40% female co-founded startups - Tokban, 60+, relay.club, and Markopolo.ai, all of which have a female Chief Operating Officer or Chief Executive Officer and 80% of startups are also addressing Sustainable Development Goals.
“With the 9 new portfolio startups selected from 600 applicants and 4 follow-on investments, Accelerating Asia is excited to continue to invest in highly scalable pre-Series A startups that also have a positive impact in respective operating markets. Since 2019, we’ve built up our portfolio of startups with investors coming to Accelerating Asia to gain early access to a pipeline of startups that combine profit with purpose,” Accelerating Asia General Partner Amra Naidoo said.
“Our VC accelerator model ensures high potential founders have greater access to needed capital financing, mentoring, and skill sets to enhance their growth trajectory and quickly become leaders in their respective verticals while also lowering the overall risk for our investors at an early stage.
“With the new cohort, we add a second investment into Pakistan and India, with Godaam and 60+ joining Deaftawk and ProjectPro in the portfolio. We also broaden our geographical footprint by investing into Relay.Club and Nucredits which are serving Chinese customers and connecting to international markets,” Amra said.
In Q1 2022 Accelerating Asia also made follow-on investments into Shuttle, Transtrack.ID, Numu, and Giftpack, adding to the additional investments into ProjectPro and iFarmer made in 2021. Accelerating Asia first invested in these six companies in 2020 and 2021, since then average monthly revenue has grown 332%, and are projected to grow revenue to an average of over $16M this financial year. Since joining the portfolio, the startups have also launched new product offerings, signed new clients, and optimized operations to sustain revenue growth and develop new income streams.
“We’re excited to continue to invest in our portfolio companies as they grow alongside leading institutional investors. There is significant market and investor demand for the portfolio especially in digitisation of transport and logistics networks with the industry at an inflection point in emerging economies like Bangladesh and Indonesia. With their fleet telematics solution and the founding team’s extensive industry experience, TransTRACK.id is well placed to capitalize on the growth of the freight and logistics market which is expected to be worth US$383B by 2023,” said Accelerating Asia General Partner Craig Bristol Dixon.
“In Bangladesh, the ecosystem is at a similar point to where Indonesia was 5-6 years ago and GDP growth is on track to be ~7% in 2022, making it one of the fastest growing economies regionally. We first started investing in Bangladesh in 2019 as one of the first international VCs, since then investor interest into our portfolio has increased. For example, Shuttle has successfully grown from starting as a safe transportation solution for women to expanding its serve to include B2B offerings for companies and more routes.” Craig said.
Accelerating Asia launched Fund II in 2021, Cohort 6 is the second batch of investments for Fund II.
The new startups in cohort 6 are:
Fitscovery (Philippines, SDG 3 & 8 ) In just 30 minutes, Fitscovery's platform creates a customized fitness website for trainers and vendors, fully equipped with events, video programmes, membership subscriptions, and more – anything trainers need to monetize. Fitscovery already works with major brands including F46 and Under Armour, has a monthly revenue growth rate of over 25%, and has over 50% of their current fundraising round subscribed.
Godaam Tech (Pakistan, SDG 3 & 8) creates a marketplace for warehousing and ancillary services which helps customers and warehouse owners to shorten the booking time, scale nationally from the comfort of their office, and provide end-to-end visibility of products, and more. Godaam Tech has already processed US$100,000 in GMV month on month GMV growth of 50%.
Markopolo.AI (Bangladesh, Female Co-Founded) is a martech SaaS platform built for 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 (Bangladesh, SDG 3) 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.
Nu-Credits (US, UK, Europe, China, HK) is a trade finance platform for businesses that connects global lenders powered by blockchain and open data technology. NuCredits raised US$2 million in its seed round and was selected by the UK Tech Nation Fintech 4.0 as one of the cohort teams and HKMA and BIS as one of the top 30 global trade finance innovative solutions alongside with PingAn One Connect, Standard Chartered, Rifinitiv, and Tencent.
relay.club (China and Southeast Asia, Female Co-Founded) connects innovative Asian brands like XGIMI and Timekettle with international social media influencers through a subscription SaaS-based platform. relay.club has a database of over 170 million YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok accounts, which allow for specialized targeted search recommendations for its clients.
Stylemyle (United States) is an online luxury fashion marketplace with a limitless number of independent multi-brand luxury fashion boutiques and designers all on one site. Stylemyle provides boutique retail partners with digital tools and an additional channel to sell their dynamically-priced overstock collections to luxury fashion-lovers all over the world, focusing on sustainable solutions for the environment. Stylemyle’s has a growth rate of 20% month on month across GMV and users.
Tokban (Indonesia, Female Co-Founded, SDG 8, 9 & 11) is a B2B platform for construction materials, MROs, and home renovations. The Indonesian construction materials market has been growing at a rate of 11% year-on-year since 2017, and is worth over US$100 billion today. Tokban helps brick-and-mortar building material and hardware stores and contractors access a wider range of materials at lower prices, and digitizes the business relationships. Tokban’s current fundraising round is oversubscribed on verbal and soft commitments and has a GMV of over $200,000.
60 Plus India (India, Female Co-Founded, SDG 8 & 10) is an end-to-end parent management technology platform for aged care. As an online aggregator platform, the company focuses on personal, emotional, healthcare, and data management, for over 130M senior citizens who are living away from their children in India. Being India's first of its kind complete parent management mobile app, 60 Plus India enables a smooth flow of information between adult children and aged care vendors, providing encrypted and secured medical and personal record maintenance.
Giftpack (Global) is all in one AI-powered gifting platform that simplifies the corporate gifting process and amplifies the impact of personalized gifts. It’s AI technology efficiently analyzes each recipient's social media, cultural background, and digital footprint to customize gift options at scale. Giftpack takes care of generating, ordering, and shipping gifts worldwide. Giftpack has closed investments from Draper Startup House Ventures, Accelerating Asia, Axxel Marketing, and Digital Garage Inc. Tokyo and is growing revenue month on month by 250%.
Numu (Global) is a software management tool that provides end-to-end solutions for influencer marketing campaigns. Their services include customized brief URLs, advanced analytics, CRM integration, shipment, post scheduling, or payment automation. Numu’s software is extremely flexible and includes templates for content licensing, product seeding, reposting, or paid reach campaigns It has closed investments from HH Investment, Endeavour Ventures, and angel investors. Some of Numu’s recurrent clients include leading international brands such as Sony, Kelloggs, Ogilvy or Mondelez Group.
TransTRACK.ID (Indonesia, Female Co-Founded, SDG 11) offers an all-in-one, fleet telematics solution to help the logistics industry optimize fleet operations. The TransTRACK.ID platform collects and analyzes real-time telemetry data such as geolocation, fuel level, mileage, and maintenance alerts for each vehicle. TransTRACK.ID has raised investment from Cocoon Capital and the Indonesian Women’s Empowerment Fund (Moonshot Ventures & YCab Ventures) and has a 150% year-on-year growth rate.
Shuttle (Bangladesh, SDG 5, 8 & 11) 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.
