Three start-ups that wowed Jack Ma, Alibaba
A shortlist of six candidates made their final pitches on Tuesday
After hearing 600 pitches spanning fintech and robotics to healthy ageing, three start-ups will share $3 million (Dh11 million) in backing from an entrepreneurs fund set up by billionaire Jack Ma.
Jumpstarter, a competition for new ideas and products similar to TechCrunch Disrupt, has the backing of Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, which unveiled its HK$1 billion (Dh470 million; $128 million) fund in 2015 to support start-ups.
A shortlist of six candidates made the final pitches on Tuesday, getting 8 minutes to talk about their products and then 4 minutes of questioning by the judging panel. Among the criteria used to decide winners were innovation, community impact and market potential. Here are their ideas. The winners:
Cuttingedge En-Trak
This
Medtech Farm66 Investment Ltd: Hong Kong
four-year-old
Ltd:
Robot doctors may not be science fiction anymore. A team of robotic and medical imaging graduates is building specialised surgical robots for orthopaedics, neural surgery and oral implants.
The company is joining hydroponics and vertical farming. Combining indoor farming with fish ponds, this start-up has already won a couple of awards from local industry associations.
Ltd:
start-up targets commercial buildings with a connected device platform to help manage power use. En-Trak says it can pull in data from existing meters to manage consumption and lower costs while also lowering carbon emissions, with customers already including Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Fuji Xerox.
The other finalists:
BeeInventor has built a cloud-based platform for communication among construction workers. Its Dasloop product fits over the helmets worn on building sites and monitors body temperatures, warns of potential collisions and provides video feeds.
This start-up aims to help merchants on ecommerce sites pick the best site to sell on. It helps online merchants suss out global ecommerce services, register products for sale and price their wares accordingly.
Viewider: Human Washer Ltd:
This start-up offers the Sit & Shower, a device that enables the elderly and mobility impaired to bathe with automated soaping, temperature control, and air drying.