Three startups have qualified for the WIT 2017 Startup Pitch Grand Finals, happening on October 25 on Day Two of the WIT 2017 Conference:
- Ooomra – a booking platform for Muslim-friendly and Islamic travel experiences
- Travelsify – a ‘hotel DNA’ content platform to power personalisation
- And Troovo – a virtual payment processing system for the corporate travel industry
Troovo also won the popular vote, being selected for this year’s Startup Pitch People’s Choice Award.
The finalists beat out seven other competitors at the WIT Bootcamp earlier today, facing a tough judging panel of nine industry leaders and mentors.
Each startup was given five minutes to pitch, followed by a brief but gruelling Q&A session by the judges, conducted in the style of the popular TV-show Dragon’s Den (or Shark Tank, as it is referred to in the USA).
They were assessed on multiple criteria including – sustainability, customer appeal, scalability, the team members, and its X-Factor.
All are vying to win the grand prize of a spot in the Travelport Accelerator Lab programme in Denver, which comes with seed funding of up to US$30,000.
The judges were impressed with the level of innovation and professionalism of the semifinalists. Yeoh Siew Hoon (Managing Director & Founder, WIT) concurred, agreeing that this year’s entries were perhaps the best yet.
“We had loads of different startups tackling lots of different problems through lots of different methods. The quality and breadth [of startups] means that there isn’t just a healthy travel market [in Asia] but there’s a healthy infrastructure to support these kinds of startups too,” said lead judge David Zimmer (Global Head of Product & Innovation, Hospitality, Travelport).
“I think for companies like Travelport that are looking to access startups to get new technologies, access new markets and new talent, this is a great opportunity… and its obvious that there aren’t many better places to get that same mix, than in Asia,” Zimmer continued.
The Grand Finals will be held on October 25, the final day of WIT 2017 in Singapore .
