A Glimpse into Early Stage, Women-Led Tech Entrepreneurship from Bangladesh

BWIN's First Women Entrepreneurs Showcase Held in Dhaka featuring a powerhouse audience of investors, founders, and key ecosystem players.

Dec 17, 2022

Last month the Bangladesh Women Investors Network (BWIN), our sister chapter launched in Spring 2022, hosted its first physical women entrepreneurs at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bangladesh. Mutual Trust Bank Angona was the sponsor partner for the flagship showcase.

A handpicked slate of four early-stage women-led startups pitched for funding to an audience of angel investors and venture capitalists from the ecosystem:

Markopolo.ai - a B2B SAAS software designed to help small businesses simplify digital marketing campaigns while saving both time and marketing expenses.

Wander Woman - a travel tech company that empowers women to explore destinations through holistic assistance. It ensures safe, hassle-free and affordable travel experiences for women through expert consultation, guided tours, and flexible payment options such as travel loans.

Relaxy - a modern-day mental health-tech on a mission to make selfcare wholesome, easily accessible & stigma-free by providing personalized psycho-social support, a non-judgmental environment, and well-being in check all in one platform.

CholPori - an affordable subscription-based learning platform for primary students and educators. It develops and distributes multimedia lessons, educational animation, interactive worksheets, and read-along books to improve academic excellence and life-skills. The direct-to-consumer platform will be launched publicly in January 2023.

✨All four companies are garnering substantial interest from the community, with syndicate calls completed with interested investors. If you’re an active angel investor/VC interested in exploring the fundraising rounds of these companies, please feel free to reply to this email or reach out to us at ariyana.khan@bdangels.co.

Check out the summary video from the event below:

Mr. Thijs Woudstra, Deputy Ambassador at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands provided the opening remarks. This was followed by an engaging panel discussion on gender lens investing in the context of Bangladesh, which shed light on the topic from the perspectives of a venture investor and ecosystem builder, an impact investor, a commercial banker and a development partner.

The panel was moderated by Ms. Farzana Kashfi, Advisory Board Member at BWIN with Ms. Tina Jabeen (Advisory Board at BWIN and Founding Director at BAN), Ms. Sharawwat Islam, CFA (Advisory Board Member at BWN), Ms. Rashid Rezoana (VP and Head of Women Banking, MTB Angona) and Mr. Bas Blaauw (First Secretary for Economic Affairs and Private Sector Development for the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) as speakers.

Ms. Tina Jabeen highlighted challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh and recommended how gender lens investing can be applied to help address this, based on the findings from the 2022 UNESCAP Startup Ecosystem Assessment Report.

As one of the few foreign impact investors with a full-time presence in Bangladesh, Ms. Sharawwat Islam, who is also Managing Director at Truvalu Bangladesh, discussed how Truvalu is looking to apply a gender lens thesis to its origination, evaluation, structuring and post-investment processes.

Ms. Rashid Rezoana shed light on how financial institutions such as Mutual Trust Bank can also apply a gender lens in their approach to making loan decisions and its approach to addressing challenges like gender washing.

Mr. Bas Blaauw shared about the evolving relationship of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bangladesh from development to trade & investment and how it is looking to foster trade & innovation through supporting women entrepreneurs, both at the grassroots and at the technology entrepreneurship forefront. Ms. Anita Ghazi Rahman, Advisory Board Member at BWIN and Managing Partner and Founder at the Legal Circle provided the closing remarks.

👉📅 P.S. WeScale Applications Due Soon!

We are proud to partner with USAID, DAI, Singapore-based early-stage accelerator and investor Accelerating Asia and angel networks and accelerators from across the region to launch WeScale, the first cross-regional accelerator in South Asia focused on women-led companies who want to raise their first funds.

❗ If you are an early-stage, woman-led tech-enabled company with a minimum viable product, please apply here by 31st December 2022 to be a part of the program. The program is due to start in late January 2023.

Interested network partners, such as investors, mentors and partner organizations who want to engage with women entrepreneurs, source investments and deal flow, deliver expertise, and network with peers across South Asia can apply here.

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