Phandeeyar — Myanmar's First Equity-Taking Startup Accelerator and What the Coup Did to It

Phandeeyar is a Yangon innovation lab founded in 2014 by Australian entrepreneur David Madden, growing out of the Code for Change Myanmar hackathon. From September 2016 it ran Myanmar's first startup accelerator that took equity, funded principally by a US$2 million grant from Omidyar Network announced in June 2016.

Forbes reported the first cohort drew 80 applications, of which 6 companies were selected, each receiving US$25,000 in seed funding plus roughly US$200,000 in strategic services. A second cohort of 7 startups shared US$175,000 in October 2017, and a third cohort of 5 startups was reported in February 2019; no cohort after February 2019 could be evidenced.

Phandeeyar's most externally consequential work was advisory: Reuters' 2018 investigation into Facebook and hate speech in Myanmar records that founder David Madden warned Facebook's California headquarters in May 2015 about anti-Muslim violence, at a point when Facebook had only two Burmese-speaking content reviewers.

The 1 February 2021 military coup removed much of the ecosystem the hub existed to serve -- Myanmar recorded at least 15 internet shutdowns in 2021. Revenue fell from US$1.9 million (2020) to US$448,381 in the coup year 2021, a drop of about 76%, before recovering to US$1.39 million by 2023; there is no evidence of accelerator activity since 2019, though the donor-funded legal entity continued filing.