KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Global Creativity and Innovation Centre (MaGIC) and ScaleUp Malaysia have announced a collaboration geared at raising the volume, growth velocity and value of the local startup industry.

In a statement today, MaGIC said the collaboration marked the first of many this year that it is driving in realising Malaysia's Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDigital) to groom 5,000 startups and attract two unicorns in the next five years.

"The collaboration aims to train and coach 20 ascendant startups and raise a minimum investment commitment of RM250,000 per company for 10 selected startups through investments from institutional investors.

"The participating startups will benefit from potential funds from financial institutions to provide matching credit lines and support from strategic corporate partners for 20 potential Malaysian startups. Both organisations will also be working very closely with the startups to double their revenue in the coming year," it said.

Chief executive officer Dzuleira Abu Bakar said this collaboration among ecosystem partners is aimed at providing more ready access to investors and funding for startups that are ready to scale up within Malaysia and the region.

"Through this, we groom the startups from bootcamp (early stage) to the Global Accelerator Programme (GAP) (mid to late stage) and onwards to ScaleUp Malaysia (growth stage) with committed funds for investment.

She said the centre hopes to funnel MaGIC alumni start-ups to ScaleUp Malaysia and likewise, to have ScaleUp Malaysia alumni benefit from MaGIC's programmes.

"By value-adding to the startups' growth development cycle, we are effectively raising the value and impact the startups in turn, delivering back into the ecosystem," she added.

-- BERNAMA