Bangladesh Tech Startups Event| 21 June 2022 Recording
Speakers
Mr Ashraf Hossain Sachin, Founder and CEO of Durjoy DSS
Mr Tanveer Rashid, CFO of ChalDal
Mr Tashfin Delwar, Co-Founder and CEO of Kotha
With
Ms Julia Charlton, Chairman of the Commonwealth Chamber of Commerce
In this webinar, we invited three dynamic individuals spearheading their own vibrant and uptrending startups in Bangladesh. Each startup is in a field different from the other; Durjoy DSS is a SaaS startup designed specifically for shop owners and retailers to automate their sales analytics using the help of data science; Kotha is a “made in Bangladesh” Social and Lifestyle App; and ChalDal is an e-commerce platform branching out into other services including food delivery, payment, transport and pharmaceutical e-commerce. Despite their differing fields, each startup shares a fierce entrepreneurial drive to change the Bangladeshi business ecosystem and disrupt the market with their technological innovations.
Each startup gave a brief introduction to their business model as well as the technological elements they have been capitalizing on to provide innovative solutions to development gaps in their respective fields of expertise. They also shared their experiences in starting their companies, their milestones and biggest challenges in expanding their services. They also took the time to discuss in detail the tech startup ecosystem of Bangladesh including a candid conversation on the future of the startup ecosystem in the context of the competitive global market along with a reflection of potential areas of growth they can still consider to venture into.
The Startups
Durjoy DSS
Durjoy DSS is a SaaS startup based in Bangladesh & USA to help FMCG brands from South Asia to make ‘sales’ effortless. For decades, brands have been solely dependent on sales representative’s brain memory & outdated sales method, ending up losing sales & salaries. Durjoy DSS automated the salesforce through their mobile app and upstreamed the sales with the help of data science, providing interactive real time data with visuals for sales rep, managers of different strata & directors.
With 6 current brand partners and 19 pre-orders from 4 courtiers, Durjoy DSS is now raising their pre-seed round of $250,000.
ChalDal
With its cloud-based, AI, and robotics-enabled warehouse system and a robust delivery platform, Chaldal optimizes the entire supply chain and enables delivery within 30 minutes. Chaldal has evolved and formed an ecosystem and has acquired subsidiaries namely BanglaMeds, GogoBangla, Cookups, and Chaldal Pay. Moreover, Chaldal has also won countless awards, including e-Business of the Year 2017, The Best e-Commerce Company of the Year 2020 and has been hailed as a top 100 startup by Forbes magazine. Beginning with very limited resources, Chaldal Group now employs over 3500 employees and serves more than 120,000 households in major cities in Bangladesh.
Kotha
Kotha is the first “made in Bangladesh” Social & Lifestyle app. Formally launched in February 2020, Kotha partners with local service providers ranging from e-commerce platforms to payment services to provide an “all-in-one” app. Kotha’s mission is to create a Bangladeshi community around the platform, connect them with each other and make a positive impact and add value to Kotha user’s everyday life with innovative services. Kotha was awarded “ICT Startup of the year” in The Daily Star ICT Awards 2020.
Currently, Kotha has over 200 thousand users, over 5 million messages exchanged and 500 thousand content posts and over US$150 thousand worth of goods sold.