The final 10 is here. 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.
report and image from sgeentrepreneurs
