Govt eyes 5 unicorn startups in two years, 50 by 2041

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the government is working to support at least five startup companies to achieve billion-dollar value by 2025.

"Startups reaching a billion-dollar value are called unicorns and each of the unicorns should create one lakh jobs here. The number of such companies should grow to 50 by 2041 when Bangladesh aims to be a smart nation," she said while speaking as the chief guest at the inaugural session of the "Bangladesh Startup Summit 2023" in the capital on Saturday.

Bangladesh started late and significantly lags behind its comparator economies in terms of startup funding and growth of the firms.

At the two-day summit, bKash, a leader in Mobile financial services (MFS), is the first unicorn in Bangladesh and its competitor Nagad was awarded as the fastest-growing unicorn.

Apart from the MFS industry that revolutionised financial transactions of unbanked people in a decade and kept growing the daily transaction numbers and value consistently, e-commerce, smart logistics, mobility, Ed-tech, healthcare tech, Agro-tech startups have also been flourishing in the country over the last half a decade.

According to the government, the tech industry ecosystem that already has over 2,000 startups helped create 15 lakh jobs in the country already, thanks to the young talents' continuous exploration for building change-making startups, government support to build an enabling environment and investors.

However, the sub-billion-dollar venture capital investment in the country is too small compared to the scope for much bigger investments, said startup entrepreneurs while speaking at 40 different sessions at the first-ever startup summit in the country which was organised by the government's venture capital investment firm Startup Bangladesh Ltd.

"Invest more in Bangladeshi startups and the government will ensure the protection and support to the investors," Sheikh Hasina said while addressing the investors.

Startup Bangladesh Ltd has already had a total fund of Tk500 crore and 30 of its portfolio startups already served nearly one crore people.

Several dozen homegrown startups have attracted world-renowned venture capital investors and with the global interest rate hike in 2022, their investment appetite dropped which left many growing startups running conservatively amid a funding slowdown nowadays.

However, speakers at the summit were optimistic about the startup funding and its foreseeable positive impacts on the economy as they cited the huge headroom for growth.

For instance, grocery delivery startup Chaldal's co-founder and CEO Waseem Alim in a keynote said all types of e-commerce accounted for 0.3% of the country's retail now and will have a 5% share of the trillion-dollar Bangladesh economy a decade later, which means a $50 billion opportunity for the sector.

With a massive population and a steady rise in purchasing power, analysts said Bangladesh is a lucrative ground for startup investment as startups with the help of technology can scale up their business at an unmatched speed.

Over a hundred international investors, experts and more than 600 startups participated in the summit.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday also inaugurated the "India-Bangladesh Startup Bridge" portal for skill development, exchange of knowledge, ideas and experiences and mutual information between entrepreneurs of the two countries.

Prime Minister's Private Sector Development and Investment Advisor Salman F Rahman and ICT State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak were among the distinguished speakers at the summit.

Eight firms — Shopup, Pathao, Bkash, Ten Minutes School, UNDP YouthCo Lab, Nagad, SBK Tech Venture and Funded Next — were awarded for their performance.