MTDC TO SPUR TECH SECTOR GROWTH
Startups will receive help with funding, business planning, talent retention
MALAYSIAN Technology Development Corporation Sdn Bhd (MTDC) aims to push the Malaysian commerce landscape to focus on technology and sciences.
Established 25 years ago as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Khazanah Nasional Bhd, MTDC has been a key player in commercialisation and management of government funds since the 7th Malaysia Plan.
Under the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP), MTDC was allocated RM900 million by the government to assist in the empowerment of technology-driven firms.
These allocations are disbursed from six of its existing funds, namely Technology Acquisition Fund, Commercialisation of Research & Development Fund, Halal Technology Development Fund (Halal Fund), Business Startup Fund, Business Growth Fund and Business Expansion Fund.
MTDC director of technology ventures division Mohammad Hazani Hassan stressed that although funding was important for a tech firm to grow and achieve its maximum potential, it might not ensure success.
“There’s a tendency to paint technology firms with the same brush, but we at MTDC know that this is not the case,” he said in an interview recently.
“Over the years that we have worked in this industry, we have had more than 600 companies under our wing. Some were successful, some not so much. That said, we do have a more than 50 per cent success rate.”
MTDC, on its part, only works with firms from high growth technology clusters, which are industrial technology, biotechnology, sea to space, science and technology core and information communications and technology.
Hazani said the factor in ensuring success for these firms were not only in funding, but also in strategic business planning, talent retention and eventually succession plans.
Luckily, this is something that the organisation also look at very closely, especially through its advisory & value added services (Avas) division, which plays a significant role in creating successful Malaysian tech companies and producing a steady stream of domestic talents.
As part of MTDC’s overall grants and funds management process, Avas identifies up to 50 high potential businesses and provides total support and solutions to elevate them to prime positions to take full advantage of the rapid integration of global markets and help them successfully expand their businesses locally and abroad.
“We also have the ‘MTDC’s Graduate Entrepreneurship Programme’, otherwise known as ‘Symbiosis’. It is aimed at training selected graduates to become technopreneurs,” he said.
According to Hazani, Symbiosis was a comprehensive programme that covered aspects of commercialisation as well as entrepreneurship.
At the end of the programme, selected candidates will lead start-up firms to commercialise technologies from the universities or research institutes that have been carefully chosen by MTDC.
Symbiosis startup companies will then be able to apply for MTDC funding to operate from any of its technology centres and receives nurturing and other valueadded services, just like any other companies within MTDC’s ecosystem.
“We are very proud of our symbiosis companies as most of them are established by young entrepreneurs that we ourselves trained and then ‘marry’ with bigger and more established tech companies under our wing.
“Some have products that are now being sold in South Korea, Dubai, local hypermarkets and even on online platforms.
“We also have 18 Symbiosis firms that became public-listed entities in Malaysia and overseas, like in the United States and Switzerland,” said Hazani.