Lately, there has been too much negative news, especially the alleged stealing of 1MDB funds and the action by the US Department of Justice against certain individuals and firms.

The group of startups is offering various deals – in food, travel and fashion products, among others – to shoppers from now till Sept 15, in conjunction with Merdeka Day and Malaysia Day.

According to a report in Techinasia, Project Merdeka is an initiative to “celebrate Malaysian entrepreneurship in the spirit of Malaysia boleh (Malaysia can do it)”.

Driven by Unicroach – a community of the top startup founders and ecosystem enablers in Malaysia – Project Merdeka is a site offering deals from 130 startups such as stock photo library 123RF, ride-hailing app Grab, fitness class booking site KFit, video streaming site iFlix, and ecommerce company Lazada.

“We’re doing this to showcase the Malaysia boleh attitude amidst all the 1MDB and political issues we face as a country. Merdeka means independence,” Techinaisa quoted Warren Leow, who runs Unicroach, as saying.

“For the first time in the history of our country, local tech startups have put their industry differences aside and united for a common goal – to give back to the community and work together for a greater cause,” according to VLT Labs head of product Serene Gan, who leads the initiative along with Warren.

Warren said any Malaysian startup could submit deals to go live as long as there was commitment to jointly market the initiative.

“This is 100 percent free. There’s no commission and no participation fee. Users click through directly to startups or just apply the discount code ‘merdeka’,” he was quoted as saying.

The group doesn’t plan on bringing down the site once the promotion period ends. “We’ll make this a yearly thing,” Warren told Techinasia.