The Programme
Rainmaking Expand: South East Asia is a market entry programme for startups and SMEs looking to expand and de-risk entry into the South East Asian market. We do this by collaboratively working with your company to strategically validate the best method for your business to enter into South East Asia and support the execution by connecting and building commercial opportunities.
Companies in the programme will go through three phases, adapted to your specific needs, readiness and schedule. We do this because we understand that market expansion cannot be timeboxed and can vary between each company. In the programme, you and your team will work closely with an Expand Lead—who will guide your overall development and expansion— as well as a Partnerships Lead—who will connect you to our broader network in-market to generate strong business leads and support your expansion with the goal to achieve commercial success.
Programme Timeline
We are currently preparing to open this programme soon. When we do, we will be accepting companies like yours into the programme, focusing on flexible and dynamic approaches to the South East Asian market, which is inline with both your company plans and with the opportunities discovered in-market.
Startups and SMEs who join this programme will go through three phases: Go-To-Market Review, Go-To-Market Execution and Post-Programme Support. The time spent in Phase 1 and Phase 2 will depend on your timeline, market readiness and identified opportunities. After connecting with various commercial leads and making progress towards commercial agreements in Phase 2, companies are able to access 18 months of post-programme support in Phase 3.
Phase 1
Go-To-Market Review: De-Risk Your Market Entry
This phase focuses on working with your company to identify a clear understanding of the market potential for your business in South East Asia and validate your market entry.
The process for this is tailored for every company as we recognise that no two market entry strategies are the same.
Therefore we will adapt the process to your unique situation while also utilising our proven methodology to:
- Identify assumptions on the business model
- (re)Define the customer segments and the value proposition best suited to them
- Master a clear presentation for South East Asia
This phase can take 1 – 2 months to complete.
Phase 2
Go-To-Market Execution: Validate Commercial
This phase focuses on the execution of the Go-To-Market strategy. During this phase, we focus on connecting with key players within South East Asia and developing relationships with potential partners.
You can expect us to collaborate and navigate introductions which can lead to commercial outcomes while also:
- Confirming and executing the expansion strategy
- Generating high value market counterpart introductions
- Creating high potential opportunities
- Achieving concrete commercial engagements
This phase can take 2 – 6 months to complete.
Phase 3
Post-Programme Support: Commercial Engagement Development
After completing Phase 1 and 2, your company will move into Phase 3 which focuses on post-programme support. Phase 3 consists of regular check-ins and ad-hoc business introductions when we identify new potential leads in relation to your business needs.
In order to maximise your success in South East Asia, this post-programme support is tailored to your needs and requirements.
This phase is available for 18 months after the completion of Phase 2.
Selection Process
Application
This programme will be opening for applications soon.
If you are interested in joining, or considering market expansion please register your interest below to meet our team and discuss your expansion.
Interview
If your application passes the initial stages, you’ll be invited to an online call for further review. This is an opportunity for you to learn more about the programme, and for us to better understand how we might support your expansion goals.
Internal Review
Upon completing the interview, our team internally reviews your company and your expansion plans for South East Asia.
Agreement Review
Upon a successful selection for the programme, we work with you to decide the best timing for your entry into the market and enter the agreement process review to align expectations and outcomes for the programme.
Why South East Asia?
Welcomes International Startups
South East Asia welcomes high potential startups through various initiatives and innovation projects. Startups can find a diverse environment in South East Asia with both partners and governments eager to support your solution into the market.
Youthful & Eager Market
South East Asia is home to large youthful market that are eager and curious about new technologies. The South East Asian population are recognised to be more adaptive to new solutions and have actively invited new startup ideas to their home markets.
Strong Alignment with Society
The local markets in South East Asia have shown a strong alignment between what is good for business and what is good for society. This creates a large amount of potential for new solutions and technology to tap into.
Influx of Investments
South East Asian countries have seen an increase in government investment in startup ecosystems, improved educational facilities, and investments in technology, creating an attractive market for investment and startup development
Rapid Growth
South East Asia is rapidly growing, expanding to implement new technologies to support society and innovation in multiple sectors. Large initiatives in these spaces are supported by governments.
Broad Market
South East Asia boasts a broad market with a range of challenges looking for disruption. Overall, the market is open to new solutions to assist in evolving the society and way of working.
Testimonials
Hacarus
Hacarus joined the South East Asia programme, focusing on validating their target markets and aligning their priorities. Through the programme, they gained expert advice and guidance, driving their next steps within the South East Asian market and acquiring qualified leads which sets them up for their market entry.
Rainmaking Expand: South East Asia / X-HUB TOKYO is a fantastic programme that helped us to focus priorities, validate some assumptions that we had about the South East Asian Market, while also leading to new insights which brought clarity to our strategy and planning moving forward. We especially liked how the programme was tailored to our specific needs and growth stage, so every session or interaction was always adding value. Through this program, we now have a clearer view of the landscape in our priority South East Asian Markets and have even been able to acquire qualified leads, which we hope to turn into actualised business in the near future.
— J.J. Price, Global Business Development Manager, Hacarus
Credit Engine
Credit Engine joined the South East Asia programme with the goal to refine their market entry strategy and to identify key contacts in their target market. By working with the Rainmaking Expand team, they were able to meet with a variety of subject matter experts, broaden their local industry knowledge in South East Asia and put together the next steps for South East Asia.
Rainmaking Expand: South East Asia / X-HUB TOKYO is one of the best business building programmes that we experienced. It is truly a holistic programme that encompasses structure, business strategy review and engagement, with specific business matching with potential partners. The Rainmaking team is highly collaborative, extremely responsible and dedicated to ensuring that the programme initiatives add meaningful value.
— Credit Engine
Powered By
Rainmaking is one the world’s most prolific corporate innovation and new venture building studios. We are a global team of over 200 that creates, accelerates, and scales new businesses with the world’s leading corporations and entrepreneurs across 13 offices on 4 continents.
Since 2010, we have run our programmes under the Startupbootcamp (SBC) brand. We are now a global family of 20+ programmes running +90 cycles in partnership with 200+ industry partners across various sectors.
Programme Partners
Ecosystem Partners
HubSpot is the All-in-One CRM That Scales as Your Startup Grows. Save 30%-90% on all the tools you need to increase leads, accelerate sales, and streamline your customer service.
GitHub helps startups plan, track, collaborate, build, test, and deploy software with a holistic and secure platform that scales with them. As part of GitHub for Startups, eligible startups receive up to 20 seats of GitHub Enterprise free for one year and 50% off in year two. Additionally, startups get access to GitHub experts for office hours, live demos, and technical best practise sharing.
Kuubiik is a global company that provides shared services, starting from 10 hours to full-time outsourcing/offshoring for all business functions.
Its global team offers marketing, design, IT, admin, and more. They work with businesses of all sizes and are trusted by global brands such as Google, TikTok, the United Nations, Shopify, HP, TELUS, MyRepublic and SGS, among others. Kuubiik provides agency-level quality control and flexible contracts that are cost-effective.
Deel is a US based unicorn startup serving more than 10,000 businesses worldwide, enabling companies to hire anyone, anywhere in a legally compliant way by providing a SaaS platform that lets you auto-generate contractor/employment agreements compliant with local labor laws in 150+ countries within a few minutes and pay all your overseas team members in multiple countries and currencies with just a few clicks.
Scalerr is a Consulting firm offering Recruitment & Strategic Advisory services for Tech companies looking to scale in APAC. Our USP is that we help our clients to test & validate product market fit in new regions, we help connect our clients with resellers/customers/VC’s to accelerate their growth, and are experts in hiring teams for tech companies launching in new regions.
Canva is a graphic design platform that allows you to easily create any design you need.
We’re offering a 1 year coupon for Japanese startups/entrepreneurs in the Rainmaking Expand programmes to support their design needs.
Apply Now
We are currently preparing to open the applications for this programme. If you are interested in joining this programme, please register your interest in our form below. We will notify you as soon as the applications are open.
If you are having trouble viewing the form, please access it here.