Grameenphone has onboarded Batch 7 of GP Accelerator — its signature national Digital Bangladesh Award-winning startup development initiative.
A virtual event was held to launch the country’s first growth-focused accelerator program on Thursday with a mission to ensure 10 times growth potential for startups, according to a press release.
The GP Accelerator curriculum has been designed to emphasize growth, going global, and business expansion with three investment partners — IDLC, Anchorless, and Bangladesh Angel Network — to equip the startups to secure international funds.
It will also continue to provide investment readiness support such as company valuation, fundraising, legal paperwork for expanding beyond borders, and attracting investment with a commitment to ensure ten-times growth for startups through a six-month-long boot camp.
The program aims to explore business expansion opportunities through business incorporation in the global market from Bangladesh.
Mustafa Jabbar, Honorable Minister, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications Division, was present as the Chief guest.
Mustafa Jabbar, Honorable Minister, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications Division, said: “It is very encouraging to witness so many diversely talented minds putting their best efforts into coming up with something different. This is the spirit that we need to carry Bangladesh forward in a digitally enabled era. I want to congratulate all the startups in the GP Accelerator Batch 7, and also thank Grameenphone for keeping up with this brilliant initiative.”
Among the other respected attendees were Grameenphone CEO Yasir Azman and distinguished guests from the startup ecosystem, media, mentors, and investors.
Azman said Grameenphone has recently received the prestigious national “Digital Bangladesh Award 2021” for its contribution to the development of the country’s start-up ecosystem through its flagship initiative GP Accelerator.
“Such recognition encourages and inspires us to be more committed to our goal of achieving a self-sustaining and knowledge-based economy,” he added.
“To reiterate our purpose of truly empowering the nation, Grameenphone believes in taking a youth-first approach, instilling a digital entrepreneurship mindset, enabling them to think globally, upskilling and reskilling them with industry-first initiatives like these to enable and unleash the potential of the demographic dividend into future drivers of economic progress, ultimately taking the nation towards realizing its Digital Bangladesh vision and tapping into the 4IR opportunities,” Azman further said.
GP Accelerator has completed six cohorts with 44 startups, creating 500,000 jobs across the nation. Grameenphone has contributed Tk14.2 crore direct cash through this streak of initiatives, providing total support to each team worth approximately Tk65 lakh.
