Philippine startup incubator IdeaSpace has announced the ten winners of its national startup competition. The startups will each receive P500k (USD 12k) in seed funding and six months of incubation, where they will get office space, business operations support, and housing facilities for those not based in Metro Manila.
During the incubation period, the more promising startups could receive additional cash support from IdeaSpace of up to P5 million. Teams will also be introduced to other investors in Philippines, Silicon Valley, and other parts of the world.
Here are the winners:
Armtech (Angeles City) – affordable water purification machine for households
DateCola (Davao City/ General Santos City) – natural date-enriched beverages, a healthy alternative to soft drinks
Mirand (Metro Manila) – low-cost and high-quality total joint implants for the Asian market
PGRS (Metro Manila) – produces electricity via rumble strips installed on high traffic roads
PinoyTravel (Metro Manila) – provincial bus seat reservation system using mobile technologies
PortfolioMNL (Metro Manila) – online marketplace for creative professionals
Prodigo (Metro Manila) – a solution for highly targeted promotions for merchants using Big Data analytics
Tech4Health (Metro Manila) – solution for health monitoring of chronic conditions, including diabetes
TimeFree (Zamboanga) – SMS-based automated queuing system
WeGen (Sorsogon) – new design of wind turbine that is more efficient than current technology
What’s striking about the finalists are the types of problems they’re trying to solve. While they include your usual, hardware, software, and mobile startups, a large amount of them are tackling opportunities in agriculture, energy, healthcare, and transport. These finalists were picked from over 700 entries.
IdeaSpace was launched in March 2012 as a non-profit organization that has drawn support from First Pacific Company, Metro Pacific Investments and the PLDT group, chaired by successful tech entrepreneur Manuel V. Pangilinan. It has received P500 million (USD 12.1M) in funding for five years. IdeaSpace’s CEO is Earl Valencia (his story here).
Since launch, the organization has conducted a national roadshow and opened its competition in August last year. Participants went through a series of competition rounds, receiving mentorship and training along the way.
Here are other startups from the top 20:
AgriCultureTechnology (Metro Manila) – monitors growth of aquatic livestock
CornerData (Metro Manila)– simplified data gathering for agriculture and disaster preparedness using electronic sensors
DepEd Smart Cloud (Angeles City) – enterprise solution for public school system
FindmyDok (Davao) – a solution for searching doctors
Lost Meets Found (Cebu) – an online solution for lost and found objects
miCab (Cebu) – smartphone solution for getting a cab with or without mobile Internet
Nambal.com (Cebu) – online healthcare system with portable features
SafeCab (Cebu) – a solution that providing feedback for commuters riding cabs
Summarize and Notify (Leyte) – allows web searches, summarizes information and notifies users
Tudlo (Cebu) – a system that teaches, guides and points during a disaster and emergency situation
Teams will each receive PhP500,000 in seed funding (about US$12,500) and will receive six months business incubation from IdeaSpace, as well as support, services and grants from partner institutions. During the end of the incubation period, teams with high potential stand the chance to get up to PhP5 million (US$125,000) in additional funding.
Incubation services include office space, business operations support, housing facilities for regional participants, and executive trainings. The winners will also get mentorship from IdeaSpace partners like Amazon, AIM, Freelancer.com, IPO Philippines, Microsoft Philippines, Adamson University and the University of the Philippines Open University.
For this round, the panel of judges was led by Manuel V. Pangilinan, First Pacific managing director and CEO, as well as other luminaries in the business and entrepreneurship scene. IdeaSpace Earl Martin S. Valencia highlighted how this round made a strong statement for science, technology and business. “Our job now is to help them become investable businesses at par with global standards. We have seen such an amazing diversity of ideas from our competition’s first run. What is common is that they all pose innovative and disruptive solutions to market needs,” he added.
IdeaSpace has a PhP500 million (US$12.5 million) funding for five years, and is geared toward improving technology entrepreneurship in the Philippines.
