Cradle aims for 10% of grant recipients to become regional firms

KUALA LUMPUR: Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd is targeting for 10% of its successfully groomed grant recipients to scale up and become regional players.

Acting chief executive officer Razif Abdul Aziz said since the company’s inception 15 years ago, 932 entrepreneurs had benefited from its grants via the Cradle Investment Programme 300 (CIP300), CIP500, CIP Catalyst, Direct Equity 800 and Co-Investment schemes.

“Not all can be a unicorn for sure, but based on our impact study, 75% of our grant recipients have successfully transitioned into profitable small and medium-sized companies, with a small portion becoming big names in the country.

“So, we are targeting for 10% of them to strive and become regional players,” he told Bernama on the sidelines of the Asean Angel Alliance Summit 2018, organised by the Malaysian Business Angel Network with Cradle Fund as the main sponsor.

A unicorn is a financial term, defined as a privately held startup company with a market value of over US$1bil.

This year, Razif said the fund received a RM20mil allocation from the government to be disbursed in the form of grants and investments, and this had been fully utilised to help 31 startup companies and 14 investee companies.

He added that the fund received more than 700 applications annually for its grants, but only 5% of them were selected. — Bernama PETALING JAYA: The Kuala Lumpur and Selangor office market remained subdued in the third quarter of 2018, as rental growth prospects continued to be challenging.

Knight Frank Malaysia said rental growth is still slow amidst rising trade tensions.

Despite this, Knight Frank Malaysia corporate services executive director Teh Young Khean said the rise of shared offices and co-working segments provided a slight breather to the oversupplied office market.

“Meanwhile, the rental growth in greater Kuala Lumpur is expected to remain challenging for the rest of 2018, as there is no major catalyst to boost demand in the short to medium term,” he said in a statement.

Greater Kuala Lumpur refers to