The WiT Startup Pitch 2018, in a first collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), has narrowed its search for the Startup of the Year to the last three.
After the first round of virtual judging, top 12 semifinalists were invited to make a live pitch at the WiT 2018 Bootcamp held at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Singapore today.
Moving on to the next round of competition are BookMeBus (creating an
Jenny Pan, “Alpha Dog” at CarePod delivers her 5-minute pitch to the judges.
ecosystem around transportation in South-Asia); CarePod (providing first class safety and care for pet air travel) and Split (instalment payments for travel).
A winner will also be announced at the Grand Finals for the WIT Startup People’s Choice Award which is based on votes from the audience.
“We saw a real diversity in every aspect – gender, nationality, and solving different issues from pet travel to bus travel to customer acquisition points,” said Yeoh Siew Hoon, founder and managing director of WiT.
“This shows a real maturing of the startup scene. We are proud of all the entrepreneurs who have risen to the challenge of making travel better,” she said.
The WiT Startup Pitch is an annual event, open to all travel-related startups, up to five years old. WiT seeks to highlight ground-breaking new ideas and clever, entrepreneurial minds that are pushing the boundaries in travel technology. The WiT Startup Pitch, now in its tenth year, received strong interest, drawing entries from around the world, serving different segments of the industry.
As part of the new collaboration with AWS, each of the 11 semifinalists received AWS service credits and support for up to one year. David Peller, head of worldwide business development, hospitality for Amazon Web Services, presented the semi-finalists with their service credits.
The semifinalists were judged by a panel of investors and travel specialists based on merits including sustainability, customer appeal, scalability, the team members, and its X-Factor. Each pitch was subjected to a question and answer session attended by three to four judges each.
Commenting on the quality of this year’s field, Booking Holding’s senior vice president of corporate strategy Adrian Currie and chairman of the judging panel said, “The entries this year presented a good diversity of startups that focused on relevant pain points in the industry.”
“This year, I felt the pitches were more thoughtful and well developed,” he added.
The Grand Finals will be held at the WiT Main Stage conference at the Singapore Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre on October 17, 2018.
The Startup of the Year will win a place in the Phocuswright Innovators Programme next month in Los Angeles.
Photo credits: Shoot My Travel
