A startup is a project or business conducted by an entrepreneur with a high rate of possibility, uncertainty, and failure. A startup company is a business model for the people around the country and beyond. Bangladesh is an ideal country for the startup business. Because it is enriched with natural resources like gas, coal mine, etc. The most important thing that Bangladesh has, is cheap labor. The labor cost of Bangladesh is the cheapest in the world. For this reason, foreign investors are highly interested to invest in Bangladesh. Even the local entrepreneurs feel safe and comfortable to invest in Bangladesh because of its cheap labor. There are many rising startups companies in Bangladesh that become successful in their own business field. Bkash, Shohoz, Pathao, chaldal, Shopup etc. are some of them. These startups companies play an important role in the economic growth of Bangladesh. So, let’s take a look at the success story of some of the Bangladeshi Startup companies:
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Chef cart
Chef Cart is a leading online-based shopping platform in Bangladesh. The owner of this company is Sultan Somrat. Chef cart is active in the Dhaka city 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. It is an online grocery shop that provides 100 % genuine product to the customer. They have a well-established and easy to use website which has over 900 products in their assemblies. Their customer service representative team is active 24 hours a day. You can buy any product at a reasonable price from them. They accept all the payment methods available in Bangladesh including PayPal, COD, or cash on delivery, debit, and credit card.
Bkash
Bkash is the second-largest mobile financial company in the world and number one in Bangladesh. It was established in the year 2011 with a 75% market share. This is a joint venture of BRAC Bank Limited and Money in Motion LLC, USA. It is a pioneer in P2P money transfer services in Bangladesh. Ant Financial Services Group, a sister concern of Alibaba group bought a 20 % share of this company in the year 2018. Bkash increased its investment from IFC (International Finance Corporation) in 2013.
Shohoz
Shohoz is an online platform that sells tickets of bus, train, and launch at a reasonable price. It was established by Maliha M. Quadir in the year 2014. It was involved in online ticketing for the first three years and later in the year 2018, it becomes involved in the ride-hailing business. A few months later Golden Gate Venture from Singapore made a $15 million investment in the company. Since then, Shohoz has started to provide food delivery inside Dhaka.
Pathao
Pathao is a ride-sharing platform that was established in the year 2015. It was established by Hussain Elius, Sifat Adnan, and Fahad in the year 2015. Pathao started food delivery services later on. It also launched car ride services in Dhaka. According to Crunchbase Pathao increases its funding by 12.8 million. Now Pathao provides the most popular ride-sharing services in Dhaka city after Uber.
Chaldal
Chaldal is one of the most popular online shopping platforms in Bangladesh. This company is renowned for delivering good quality products at cheap prices for their customer. Waseem Alim, Jetas Biswanath, and Zia Ashraf founded this company in the year 2013. Chaldal increases its fund by 5.5 million from Y Combinator, International Finance Corporation, and IDLC Finance. It is operational in the Dhaka city only but soon they will provide their services countrywide.
Shopup
Shopup started its journey in the year 2016 with an aim at providing a business solution for facebook entrepreneurs. It makes people believe that they can start a business at any age. Facebook entrepreneurs get benefitted by them. They can promote or advertise their product through shopup. Not only that they can also communicate with them through shopup.
Sheba.xyz
Sheba.xyz is a popular market in Bangladesh that provides gadget repairing services, electronics services, house shifting services, beauty salon and car renting services, and sanitary item services in Bangladesh. One can visit their website and have their services sitting at home. A customer can be benefitted from them in most of the sectors in his life. They are famous for their quality services at reasonable prices among the customers.
Dam.com.bd
Dam.com.bd is one of the rising online platforms in Bangladesh. They collect data from the local market about almost every product. People visit their website for knowing the price of different products. The owner of this company said that 60% of the customer pay a high price because they don’t know the actual price of the product. It was founded in March 2014. Now they have 120 partner shops and 6000 unique users every day.
Lidia May
Lidia May is one of the startups in Bangladesh. It was established in the year 2010 with an aim at alleviating poverty from Bangladesh. It wants to empower women in Bangladesh by selling their embroidery craftsmanship to the world. These exports locally made embroidered bags to the different countries of the world. Lidia May is working with Lidia Hope Center, a non-profit organization working with the slum dweller of Bangladesh.
Shobjibazaar
Shobjibazaar is an online platform that was established in the year 2013. It has 65 acres of land where they produce vegetables and supplies throughout Dhaka. At present, they are active only in Dhaka city but they are working hard to reach every corner of the country in the shortest possible time. They accept all the payment methods including COD or Cash on Delivery. They deliver the product free of charges and they ensure on-time delivery. this is another top Bangladeshi Startup companies.
Conclusion
Bangladesh is a fertile land for startup companies like chef cart, bkash, chaldal,pathao etc. The socioeconomic condition of Bangladesh is in favor of setting up a startup company. The startup companies found adequate nourishment under every government of Bangladesh. Especially, Bangladesh has cheap labor which is helpful to set up a startup company. The stable economy of Bangladesh attracts foreign investors resulting in the growth of Bangladeshi Startup companies. The peaceful political condition of Bangladesh in recent years inspired the entrepreneurs to take risks to start their business.
Bangladeshi Startup companies are playing an important role in the development of the country. They recruit a huge number of employees that help us alleviate unemployment to some extent. They also earn foreign currency by exporting the product to the whole world. The entrepreneurs like Lidia May contributed a lot to alleviate poverty from Bangladesh. She also contributed to empowering womenfolk in the country. An entrepreneur like Lidia May proved that there is no age or gender limitation to start a business. Anybody can start a business if he is strong in determination.
