1337 Ventures first online accelerator off to ‘amazing’ start

  • ​Ideation stage startups make up largest number of participants
  • Looking to open intake for more people to follow process via recorded sessions

1337 Ventures first online accelerator off to ‘amazing’ start

“It was an amazing Day 1 for all of us,” gushes Bikesh Lakhmichand, chief executive officer of 1337 Ventures. Yesterday marked the first day of Malaysia’s, and Southeast Asia’s, first ever online accelerator, the Alpha Startups Digital Accelerator (ASDA) by co-organised by 1337 Ventures and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).

The digital accelerator is launched as an initiative to guide startups in this time of uncertainty through the stages of ideation, market validation, marketing and prototyping. Keen to maximise opportunities and stay productive during the movement control order (MCO), a total of 213 startups registered for the online accelerator with 156 startups accepted.

For the offline batches previously, 1337 Ventures takes in a maximum of 25 teams. “Surprisingly when things are done online, despite the size of the batch we could start the session sharp at 9:30. Everyone seems to be on time online compared to in real life,” Bikesh quips.

Each founder can bring along a cofounder to join in. “Each day, we have the sessions recorded and uploaded to our learning management system so the rest of the team can catch replays of it, or it is also streamed live to our Facebook page for those sessions that overflow the classroom.”

In fact, 1337 Ventures is already looking to allow more people a chance to join an open intake next week onwards to follow the process of the accelerator via recorded sessions. “This way we can scale our programme and have more aspiring entrepreneurs benefit,” says Bikesh. Those details will be shared at a later time via 1337 Ventures various social media channels.

In midst of running the online accelerator, Bikesh took the time to share a quick update on the breakdown statistics of participants. Most participating startups are at the ideation stage (42.2%) followed by prototyping (29.3%) and launched startups (28.6%).

1337 Ventures first online accelerator off to ‘amazing’ startMeanwhile, those in the process or service sector (41.6%) make up the largest proportion of participants followed by on-demand services (22.1%) and marketplace (20.4%).

To date, 1337 Ventures has a track record of investing in 33 startups from the Alpha Startups programmes. Through its digital edition, Bikesh is hopeful in scaling further and reaching a larger pool of aspiring entrepreneurs.

 

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