Japan’s Dream Drive has claimed the top prize in this year’s WiT Singapore Startup Pitch, after it made its final pitch with two others at Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre as part of WiT Experience Week, its first-ever hybrid event. It also nabbed the People’s Choice Award, voted by the WiT audience.
WiT Seoul Startup Pitch, a competition run concurrently by WiT’s partner Tidesquare in South Korea, was won by The Capsule.
Dream Drive beat two other finalists – Hepstar and Kyte – with its “luxury hotel on wheels” winning concept, appropriate in the post-Covid world.
“That dream drive won both the judges vote and people’s choice shows where current sentiment is – the trend for local travel, and the yearning for road trips, and to be in safe places with small groups, whether families and friends. We feel this startup fits with the current trend of road trips and local niche travel – an all-round winner for the times,” said Yeoh Siew Hoon, founder of Web in Travel.
The two other finalists were South Africa-based Hepstar which pitched its single marketplace for travel ancillary products to online travel providers and UK’s Kyte. It sold itself as “the first SaaS platform for airline distribution”.
“We are so happy to win WiT Startup Pitch 2020. Dream Drive has a vision of building a new ecosystem of travel in Japan, allowing people to travel freely and our team is thrilled to have received such a good response from presenting, I had a lot of great connections flooding in over Linkedin after the pitch – we are surprised by the quality of the networking considering I was pitching in Singapore from one of our “Kuma” camper vans with portable wifi in Tokyo,” said Jared Campion, founder of Dream Drive.
As this year’s champion, Dream Drive won a place in the Phocuswright Innovators 2020 programme. In addition, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is collaborating with WiT Startup Pitch for the third year running. AWS contributed over US$250,000 worth of technology credits and support towards WiT Startup Pitch 2020 through the AWS Activate program, which provides startups with tools and resources to help grow and scale their businesses.
“Startups tackle problems that have never been solved before by applying new technologies and new ways of thinking, and at AWS we embrace this spirit. At a time when the travel industry is facing significant disruption, innovation becomes even more important. Congratulations to the all the participants in the WiT Startup Pitch 2020,” said David Peller, Managing Director, Travel and Hospitality at AWS and one of the judges of this year’s competition.
The semi-finalists and eventual finalists were selected by a team of judges, including David Peller, Managing Director, Travel and Hospitality at Amazon Web Services; Eunice Wong, Associate, Monk’s Hill Ventures; Frank Lin, Principal, Corporate Development, Google Greater China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand; Greg Schulze, Senior Vice President, Expedia Group; Honnus Cheung, TMT Innovator Advisor & Entrepreneur; Hugh Mason, CEO & Founder, TrustScan; Nicholas Cocks, Managing Partner, Velocity Ventures; Kei Shibata, CEO, LINE Travel Jp, Louise Daley, Deputy CEO Asia Pacific, Accor; Min Yoon, CEO, Tidesquare; Rod Cuthbert, Founder, Viator; Sebastien Gibergues, Vice President, Online Travel Asia Pacific, Amadeus; Timothy Hughes, Vice President, Corporate Development, Agoda; Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, Principal, 777 Partners.
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 12th year, received strong interest, drawing entries from around the world, serving different segments of the industry. Last year’s WiT Singapore Startup of the Year was IDEM Hospitality. It joined an illustrious list of past winners that includes Klook, MyRealTrip, and Relux among others.
