Phandeeyar, a Yangon-based innovation hub, is one of the six nee organisations that became members of MPE&VCA since January 2020. With the new entries, MPE&VCA membership had reached 28 members. Phandeeyar joins the category of Full membership that includes 14 active institutional investors dedicated to investing in Myanmar, each of whom has made at least one investment in the country.
One recent activity hosted by Phandeeyar was the Mandalay Business Challenge (MBC) 2020 in Mandalay, a competition of nine days that saw 25 startup teams and 15 SMEs participate to win cash prizes and meet potential investors and mentors.
Contributing to the activities of MBC were representatives of MPE&VCA members, Tin Min Htut, executive director at Trust Venture Partners, Rahul Sejpal assistant director at Anthem Asia, and Kyaw Htoo Naung, senior investment officer at Daiwa PI Partners.
Winners of MBC were Shwe Mann Paddy Seeds Production for the SME category and Lasta, a simulation game for Business training, for the startup category.
Phandeeyar – which started as a tech incubator – has so far been making investments from its own balance sheet. However, last year the company announced that it was for the first time in talks to raise external financing for a fund of to $1-2 million to invest in early-stage tech firms.