DTAC has spun off DTAC Accelerate as a start-up investment and incubation business, while AIS has expanded AIS The Start-up into a digital-partner programme called AIS The Start-up Connect.

Sompoat Chansomboon, director of DTAC Accelerate, said DTAC aimed to build up the best Thai start-ups to go global.

DTAC Accelerate, started in 2013 as an in-house project, was spun off as a company last year to invest in and incubate start-ups. DTAC Accelerate this year has doubled its investment and incubation budget to Bt100 million from between Bt50 million and Bt60 million in 2015.

From 2013 to 2015, DTAC Accelerate groomed 11 start-ups, and its Batch 4 is ongoing with 11 teams.

Around 70 per cent of its 11 start-ups have raised funds from overseas surpassing US$5 million (Bt175 million), while total valuation is now above Bt1.2 billion.

DTAC Accelerate offers investment and incubation as well as co-working space. Its investment focuses on pre-seed funding of between $20,000 and $50,000 each.

DTAC Accelerate, which is 100 per cent invested by DTAC Trinet Network (DTN), is with an investment-business holding company.

“The benefits of DTAC Accelerate are not only financial gain but also adding innovation to DTAC’s services,” Sompoat said.

He said the potential areas for start-up innovation were financial technology, health tech, agri-tech, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.

Suvit Arayawilaipong, senior vice president for product management at AIS, said the company took in start-ups as digital partners to offer innovative services to its customers. Therefore, AIS yesterday officially announced AIS The Start-up Connect to welcome as partners start-ups that already have products.

Currently, AIS has 23 digital partners, brought in through start-up competitions since 2011, to provide innovative services for AIS’s corporate and individual users.

“Being digital partners, start-ups will be offered help including payment platforms and market access,” Suvit said.

Meanwhile, AIS has also joined with InVent, the venture-capital team at InTouch, to invest in potential start-ups.

Thanapong Na-ranong, vice president and head of the venture-capital team, said InVent this year was concentrating on investing in Series B start-ups, because of the relative lack of investors in such businesses and the low risk.

With a 2016 investment budget of more than Bt200 million, InVent plans to invest in four start-ups, most of them Series B entities that usually each require more than Bt30 million.

InVent is a corporate fund, so it aims to invest in start-ups with a product or service that can be utilised, and is not looking to invest simply for financial gain, he said.