Startup Bangladesh Limited on Tuesday announced to cancel a Tk5 crore investment proposal for 10 Minute School, an online educational platform in Bangladesh created by Ayman Sadiq in 2015.
Startup Bangladesh Limited is the first and only flagship venture capital fund of the ICT Division sponsored by the Bangladesh government.
“Startup Bangladesh has cancelled an investment proposal of Tk5 crore for 10 Minute School,” Startup Bangladesh wrote on its official Facebook page.
The reason for the step is yet to be known.
Meanwhile, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, state minister for ICT, shared Startup Bangladesh Limited's post on his official Facebook profile.
Asked about the reason for the cancellation of the investment, the state minister told reporters: "First of all, since we are an investment company, we have some non-disclosure agreement. Hundreds of people apply to us for investment.
From there, we invested Tk120 crore in 36 companies. About 50 other companies are in the process of investing. We can't disclose the information that is inside the contracts or the negotiations that happen with them.”
He made the comments at the secretariat on Tuesday.
There are speculations that the move came amid protests demanding reform of government job quotas.
Ayman Sadiq, co-founder and CEO of 10 Minute School, supported protesters' demand for quota reform on Facebook.
Two days ago, he updated his cover photo, which reads: “We want quota reform. Merit should be the biggest quota.”
The post went viral, generating over 200,000 reactions, 38,000 comments, and nearly 6,000 shares.
