JFDI.Asia launches latest accelerator program

Modeled on US accelerator Tech Stars, JFDI.Asia looks for teams ready to take their start-up from concept to early-stage investment. Every team selected is offered S$15,000 ($11,700) in cash plus working space. JFDI also claims to offer S$150,000 worth of mentoring and $300,000 in technical support and vendor perks.

"This is our third batch since we launched and every time the quality and maturity of the teams has just gone up and up," Hugh Mason, co-founder and chief executive of JFDI.Asia, told AVCJ. "Pretty much all the teams for this latest intake already have an established prototype and have had some indication of customer engagement. One of teams joining from Thailand already has 1.2 million users."

The start-ups in this latest batch are: social e-payment and marketing business enMarkit; healthcare behavior analytics platform Healint; collaboration app Lifebox JSC; photo sharing app Molome; food and hospitality sector customer feedback platform Skimbl; emerging markets e-payment service Qwikwire; mobile data analytics business TapTalents; online physical storage service Vault Dragon and emerging markets pharmaceutical services provider ZhenXin.

Of the 30 founders joining the program, there are five each from Vietnam and the US, four each from France, Singapore and Taiwan, three each from India and Thailand, and one each from Canada and the Philippines.

For every new intake of startups JFDI raises a different investment vehicle of around $500,000 - the latest being JFDI 2013. Its investors include a number of high net worth individuals, angel investors and venture capital funds.

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• Topics
• Venture
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Singapore
• JFDI.Asia
• seed
• TMT
• Technology