Innovation is everywhere attended Techsauce Summit 2016, the biggest international tech conference in Thailand on July 23-24th 2016. Presented by Digital Ventures, the conference aims to attract up to 3,000+ attendees and the top startup founders, thought leaders, policy makers, investors and corporate innovators from across Asia.

Aside from the numerous perspectives from the information given by many world-class speakers, the conference also provided us with trends regarding emerging industry alongside with market demands through their growth-stage startup pitching battle.

In this battle, competing startups are given 5 minutes pitching and 3 minutes Q&A for each team, with the judges as follow:

1) Polapat Arkkrapridi – Managing Director, Corporate Venture Capital at Digital Ventures
2) Sompoat Chansomboon – Director, Business Innovation, dtac Accelerate
3) Thanapong Na Ranong – Head of Venture Capital, InVent by Intouch Holdings
4) Albert Shyy – Principal, GREE Ventures
5) Saemin Ahn – Managing Partner, Rakuten Ventures
6) Victor Chua – Investment Director, Gobi Partners

Here were the competing startups:

1) AIRPORTELS 

AIRPORTELs brand itself as a trusted porter company, offering new experiences in traveling with their exclusive same-day luggage delivery and storage service between Airports and Hotels in Bangkok, Thailand.

Luggage can be sent directly from the airport to the hotel and vice versa, allowing customers to pick their luggage immediately to, and from the concierge, allowing a hassle-free “walk-in” traveling experience. This start-up has run for eight months, with currently 150sqm storage at airports.

We found it interesting how AIRPORTELs realizes that there is a growing travel demand in Thailand as it emerges as a tourism hot spot and identifies a problem of luggage as a hassle for travelers. With currently five competitors in Thailand and 20 overseas, the startup plans to focus their base in Thailand first, showing that they would enhance in-house experience before venturing outside.

2) DRVR

DRVR is a fleet analytics company, originally started to help drivers improve their performance.

Currently, they are the leading fleet management company in Myanmar and are ready to launch in Thailand and other markets, as also profiled by Tech in Asia as a possible solution to Thailand being the world’s 2nd most dangerous place for drivers.

Through Drvr’s platform, businesses can monitor their fleet in real-time and glean insights using built-in data analytics capabilities. They provide hardware independent solution with a subscription based model, charging vehicles per month.

Placing an emphasis on the UX/UI of their platform, the company aims to gain market power through their user-friendly interface, with just a 1-day training required for familiarization. DRVR also estimates their market opportunity at US$ 5 billion, despite the small revenue from the sale of the hardware.

3) Everex

Everex is an innovative FinTech and Blockchain development company aiming to fuel the shift towards a bank-less world. With the team experiencing the world of capital markets and banking for a few years, the team saw the many flaws in the system and the need for change towards digitalized assets.

With the focus of cross-border money transfer, especially remittances, the start-up has obtained 600+ users with 1m bath in volume and a total of 400 transactions mainly in Mekong sub-region, Myanmar.

4) Finnomena

Finnomena is the largest investment content platform in Thailand. Introducing themselves as Thailand’s leading financial gurus, they advise on the fundamentals of financial investments, portfolio management, as well as investment advice and portfolio insights.

They seek the market opportunity from the fact that only 7% of people in Thailand have a wealth plan, while realizing the need for Thai people to actually have a wealth manager. They advise on individual choices of goal, risk and time and formulate seven customized wealth plan, according to individual preferences.

Utilizing the strength of by far 40 finance content provider gurus with ex-JP Morgan or Citi Bank investment bankers in the team, they advise through the content of their expertise. Also, they introduce themselves as robot advisor who not only advises but also execute on the platform, allowing a more inclusive approach in their wealth management system.

5) Giztix (winner)

Giztix, the winner of this growth stage startup pitching battle is a logistics marketplace focused on shipping. Currently one of the top 10 in Asia, they have achieved 150k US$ transaction value, with a said 15% growth on a month-on-month basis.

Giztix derives their idea from a personal experience as having the CEO’s parents in the logistics industry for over 20 years. In the past, people needed days to get a shipping quotation, but with Giztix, people can now get shipping quotation within 24 hours. Giztix also enhance their platform with the ability to book and track online the shipped products.

With currently eight destinations from Thailand, Giztix earns their revenue by charging 5% commission fee. Despite having competitors in Asia, Giztix have secured major partnerships which include DTac and a few banks.

Giztix also won Echelon Thailand Startup Launchpad in 2015.

6) Piggipo

Piggipo is a platform which manages credit cards in one app. They derive their idea from the increasing credit card spending in Thailand, which is often followed by over-spending problems and poor management of credit cards.

Piggipo allows for personal finance management to manage spending, credit limit, and budgeting. A virtual administrative assistant to help customers manage their financial management as well as expenses analysis.

Piggipo emphasize on their safety as they do not require any credit card information. Also, the app offers a 128-bit system, a standard security level with the World Bank.

The start-up has currently raised $70K seed funding as well as partnered with Maybank and Kbank.

With currently 180,000 users and 20% active monthly users, the winner of Dtac in 2014 as well as Echelon Thailand in 2014 realizes that the challenge is mainly to educate the market on credit card spending.

7) Plan for fit

Plan for fit is a weight loss coaching app with real coaches managing their personal subscribers. It has realized the growing demand for a healthy lifestyle as well as body-image awareness in the market. With one personal coach looking after 200 customers, the platform has enabled such possibility with their one-for-all app. It has claimed to have a 94% success rate, focusing on the personalization aspects of their weight-loss plan.

A wrap-up from the growth-stage pitching battle, we realized that most of these start-ups build their products based on specific pain points of their target market. Personal experiences are placed great emphasis in improving their customer experience as well. Overall, Techsauce summit  2016 was an insightful event indeed, and do follow up for more of our insights and interviews from this event!