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Borneo Bulletin Yearbook 2020
START-UPS
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)
are one of the country’s main drivers of economic
diversification. With the combined support
of the government and various organisations,
a number of start-ups have made significant
progress and shown promising results.
Agrome IQ
Agrome IQ started out with a simple vision
of helping farmers make better decisions.
Founded in 2017, Agrome IQ supports
digitisation of farm management processes to
increase farm quality and productivity.
With its educational mobile application
SPROUT (iQ), anyone can learn about farming
and start their own farm in their backyard.
Workshops are also available so that growers
can receive farm management guidelines
while sharing with the community their
progress and produce.
In May 2019, Agrome IQ announced that it had
raised a six-figure Pre-Series A funding led by
Singaporean VC firm Cerana Capital. Founder
and CEO of Agrome IQ Dr Vanessa Teo said
that Agrome IQ can increase its operations
and product ranges with the funding while
expanding its footprint in Brunei Darussalam
and Singapore.
Agrome IQ marked another milestone in
June 2019 when it signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with national agencies
from the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-
Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth
Area (BIMP-EAGA). Through the MoU, Agrome
IQ was officially endorsed by the BIMP-EAGA
on a project titled Digitisation of Smallholder
Farmers. The agreement was signed to
cooperate on supporting Agrome IQ’s smart
farming platform for farmers and agro-based
businesses in BIMP-EAGE areas. The founder
expects to attract 100,000 farms in two years,
which can generate a massive dataset to be
used for agricultural forecasting, modelling
and artificial intelligence.
Al-Huffaz Management
With an aim to nurture an Al-Quran literate
generation, Al-Huffaz Management connects
educators to students for Al-Quran recital
classes as its core business activity.
CEO and founder of Al-Huffaz Haji Loqman Al-
Hakim bin Haji Hamdan had the idea to start
the company after he realised a shortage of
private Al-Quran teachers. In a short period, he
managed to gather Al-Quran tutors and started
teaching over 50 recital classes a week.
In 2017, Al-Huffaz Management won ‘Best
Social Impact Startup’ at the inaugural Brunei
Rice Bowl Start-up Awards.