Malaysia’s tricky attempt to marry TPM’s old and MaGIC’s new tech

In early-2021, the Malaysian government decided to merge two tech agencies, startup-focused MaGIC and 25-year-old Technology Park Malaysia, to form MRANTI—to focus on tech commercialisation. Though a move to reduce redundancies between the two agencies, integration won’t be easy

In a move to consolidate resources and speed up tech commercialisation, the Malaysian government merged MaGIC and Technology Park Malaysia (TPM) to form MRANTI in April 2021

But prior to the merger, both agencies have led very different lives. MaGIC is startup-focused while TPM was merely leasing office space out to enterprises

Bring both agencies together would be a challenging task, but there seems to be a bigger problem at hand––low commercialisation rate in Malaysia

Post-merger, MRANTI will be the coordinating agency for the government, universities, entrepreneurs to increase the impact of their tech commercialisations

In April, Malaysia’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) said it would merge would merge MaGIC TPM, MaGIC consolidated into single technology commercialisation agency Read more two of its agencies––MaGIC (the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre) and 25-year-old Technology Park Malaysia (TPM). The main agenda for the merger is to accelerate commercialisation in Malaysia, pushing the country to become a high-income, high-tech nation, said then-MOSTI-minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

The merger, which is to be completed by the first quarter of 2022, should help Malaysians better tackle certain issues, said the ministry.

AUTHOR

Ka Kay Lum

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Ka Kay covers investment activities, aka following the money, across Southeast Asia and in-depth stories on the often-overlooked Malaysian startup ecosystem. She was previously a regional writer for Nikkei-owned DealStreetAsia.

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