Six start-ups took to the stage at the WIT Start-Up Pitch at the WIT Bootcamp and three emerged victorious to fight it out at Grand Finals of the annual start-up competition during the WIT Conference on October 21.
Augustin Cheah (left) and Mi Zhou – 42Race
The three shortlisted candidates are 42 Race, rimoto, and Wellobox. 42 Race is a web/mobile platform for runners to plan “running vacations” or tourists who travel for marathons, and is a one-stop portal for relevant marathon travel resources.
On average about 20% of marathon participants are tourists.
Mi Zhou, who was making the presentation, said the market was highly niche and has a size of US$200 million in China. The global market size is estimated at US$3 billion globally.
“Focusing on China is our first target due to the high growth rates and our internal ability to access the market. We are confident to enter this market as it is highly niche and the target audience is very concentrated.”
Rimoto is a disruptive service that enables international for travellers to discover local essential apps/services in their destination country, and engage with them for free without requiring an active roaming plan or WiFi.
Users just need to download/activate the app once and it will activate automatically in the background.
Stuart Blitz of Wellobox
Wellobox is a service to provide hosts with incentives to enhance guests’ experience, thus better reviews and more future revenue.
“Hosts are travel related brands, which sign up for monthly subscription service, and Wellobox sends curated mobile offers to the guests. We customise perks based on location and reason for travel,” said Stuart Blitz, its CEO and founder.
Wellobox offers hosts, such as airbnb, HomeAway or other hotels, as well as make the experience special. It will focus on cities as they are more dense and need for travel advice.
The other three start-ups who did not make it through were Tripbolt that simplifies travel search; Shopping Tonight that sources for discounts for shoppers; Your Local Cousin that creates customised itineraries from a local in that destination and connect travellers with a local.
