Cradle Fund, an agency owned by the Finance Ministry, aims to create an ecosystem for technology entrepreneurs, while increasing the quality and quantity of start-ups in Malaysia.
“Overall, it is a very supportive budget for the start-up ecosystem, with intervention pointing to the covering of strategic measures, human capital, supporting regional expansion, upgrading the broadband speed amongst others,” he told FMT.
Nazrin said the RM200 million Working Capital Guarantee Fund for start-ups was a shot in the arm for local start-ups.
At the present, he said many start-ups lacked options when it came to capital and were forced to hunt for grants.
He said the introduction of the Foreign Knowledge Tech Entrepreneurs scheme, which he believed was a new worker’s pass, will encourage the supply and diversity of the ecosystem’s talent pool.
The scheme he said, would most likely emulate the United States of America’s Foreign High Technology Start-up Entrepreneurs scheme.
Similarly, the founder of RecomN, Jes Min Lua, a local start-up, said the Foreign Knowledge Tech Entrepreneurs scheme would allow an influx of talent to fill the current talent gap.
“The question, however, is how can we support their integration into the community for them to transfer knowledge and enrich our Malaysian talent pool.”
She said the foreign talent pool would also open the doors for Malaysian companies to enter their countries.
Essentially, she added that the pass provides a bridge which enables local companies to scale beyond Malaysia, which is crucial for tech start-ups.”
RecomN also runs Sejasa.com, Indonesia’s largest service platform, “so we will be taking advantage of the Foreign Knowledge Tech Entrepreneurs”.
Several incentives were announced yesterday for start-ups and small-and-medium enterprises (SME), in line with the government’s declaration that 2017 will be the Startup and SME Promotion Year.
Najib also announced an allocation of RM75 million for programmes under the SME Master Plan and another RM15 billion for various schemes under the Syarikat Jaminan Pembiayaan Perniagaan (SJPP).