The highlight of our Startup Asia Jakarta 2014 conference is, of course, the Startup Arena, which showcases interesting startups tackling unique problems in unique ways.
As always, hundreds of startups applied, making it tough to pick the best among them. We did the hard job for you, and here are the nine super smart finalists, who will battle it out this evening to take home the winner’s trophy.
[The list is in alphabetical order.]
1. Arcterus
Arcterus targets families with kids attending cram school or ‘juku’ using two main products. Caiz teaches both tutors and students how to maximize study time by defining the learning styles of students. With Clear, students who have completed their studies can upload their notebooks so other users can view them and learn how successful studiers excelled on their university entrance exams. Clear has a social element too in that users can ask questions to the original notebook owner if there is an explanation which needs clarifying.
2. Bareksa
Bareksa is a portal for trading stocks and bonds in Indonesia. It offers all the tools that experienced investors and beginners need to make informed trading decisions. More importantly, Bareksa also provides the trading platform. It features a learning center that is complete with a glossary of otherwise tricky investor lingo and an index of listed companies that are already open for investment.
3. BookMe
Pakistani startup BookMe is an online ticket booking portal for movies, events, and bus services. Accessible via a website, an Android app, or even SMS, BookMe was the first of its kind in Pakistan. It was founded in November 2013 and incubated in Plan9, Pakistan’s first and largest tech incubator. The site launched in March. Now, it is in residence at the PlanX tech accelerator.
4. iGrow
Indonesian startup iGrow provides a system for supervision and administration of agriculture activities. With iGrow, users can plant, monitor, and develop crops in Indonesia as an investment. When the crops begin to produce fruits and veggies, iGrow’s team helps users turn the yields into cash. iGrow targets Indonesia’s middle class urbanites, which is around 60 million people.
5. LawCanvas
LawCanvas is one of a new wave of startups providing services for startups. As the name implies, it focuses on legal help – specifically, coming up with legal documents. The idea is that, by using the online tool for creating documents, it saves entrepreneurs time drafting files when they’re incorporating the company, hiring new staff, or drafting a non-disclosure agreement, and avoids issues like drawing up a contract that’s full of holes. For now it’s focused on Singapore law, but the startup is already working on launching in neighboring Malaysia.
6. Pembantu
Pembantu means “maid” in the Indonesian language, so it’s clear to see what line of business the Pembantu site is in. As with a number of online marketplaces, it brings together information from third-party agencies into one place – in this case for people to find domestic helpers for cleaning, babysitting, or as a live-in nanny. Currently, Pembantu is targeting Indonesia’s growing middle class. Plans are afoot to expand to other countries soon.
7. PlayRoll
Playroll gives event organizers and attendees more options for putting events together. Founded and manned in Hong Kong by a three-person team hailing from McKinsey & Company, Goldman Sachs, and Soda Card, the fledgling startup is seeking to become a central player in Hong Kong’s social scene.
8. Triip
Vietnamese startup Triip allows anybody with a tour idea to create a limitless number of unique tours rooted in personal travel experiences and local knowledge. These personalized itineraries can then be sold to interested tourists. It has already gone beyond Southeast Asia, and opened worldwide recently. It is cash-positive though co-founder and CEO Lam Ha had to sell her house to fund Triip.
9. uHoo
uHoo is a svelte indoor air quality monitor. While we’re powerless to control the pollution levels in our cities, the little gizmo wants to give users useful and important information about what’s going on inside the home. It connects to an app to send alerts about air quality issues that could lead to ill health.
*This is part of the coverage of Startup Asia Jakarta 2014, our event running on November 26 and 27. Check out all the newest Startup Arena pitches here. Follow along on Twitter with the #startupasia hashtag.
This post Meet our 9 superstars who made it to the Startup Asia Arena finale appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Meet our 9 superstars who made it to the Startup Asia Arena finale
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