Govt looking to reform startup ecosystem, focus on investment - Rafizi

KUALA LUMPUR - The government is looking into ways to reform the startup ecosystem in terms of venture capital and investments towards the advancement of these companies, said Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli.

He said the government will be focusing on the funding for the startup ecosystem and the ways it could be created at the seed and angel investor stages.

"My view is to see how more investment (into startups) will be made at the seed and angel investor stages.

"These are the things that we want to see, how we can create more startups at the seed and angel investor levels," he said during the Ilham Mavcap talk series organised by Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd (Mavcap) here, today.

According to Rafizi, Malaysia now offers more than a gateway for the startup ecosystem into the region as compared to its neighbouring countries.

"We have the right plan, (and) with all the agencies and ecosystem working together, we can catch up very quickly compared with our peers.

"We want to be a hub of choice for digital investors, at par with Singapore and Indonesia," he said.

Meanwhile, Rafizi noted that the government is also working on ways to integrate the back-end systems that are tasked to help advance the startups in the digital and technology ecosystem at different levels and stages.

"I will be sitting down with the Ministry of Communications and Digital and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation responsible for the digital ecosystem on June 21 to get everyone on the same page and decide collectively how we are going to do this.

"We will persuade these 20 agencies (related to the ecosystem) that we will have to move towards a single window approach similar to what we have done with the visa application system," he said.

Rafizi added that the idea for the integration of the back-end system for digital and technology will be presented to the Digital Economy Council chaired by the Prime Minister by the end of July.

"We will have more clarity about how exactly we will be doing this, on what single window approach, by sometime in August because after the Digital Economy Council meeting at the end of July, we hope to get clearance for us to make a big announcement that involves some big investments," he added. - BERNAMA