Meet the 7 teams pitching for glory today at our Startup Arena in Jakarta

There can be only one winner of today’s Startup Arena, but the contest wouldn’t be so tight without seven compelling young startups in the contest. They’ll be giving their all to convince the judges that they deserve to be picked as a hot startup to watch – and rewarded with a giant check.

The packed audience here at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2015 will see all seven pitch this afternoon during the frenetic finale to our two-day conference. Before they take to the stage, here’s our summary of all seven (in no particular order):

YesBoss

YesBoss is Indonesia’s answer to Magic, the SMS-based online concierge that made waves earlier in the year. It launched in May.

The goal of YesBoss is for users to no longer hunt for Pizza Hut’s phone number, go to the hardware store, or even buy things online. The startup’s human assistants do all that. They’ll handle web-related things themselves (like a question about what time you can watch a certain movie at nearby cinemas, which the concierge service might handle by phone calls or web searches), while requests related to offline items will be passed to affiliate companies (such as for your pizza).

The YesBoss team.

All this is free right now. Clearly, that’s not sustainable, so it’ll need to work out a business model. Also, it’ll have to gravitate from human assistants to more artificial intelligence-powered responses where possible – which the team says they’re working on.

The startup’s founders are Irzan Raditya, Muhammad Reynir Fauzan, Wahyu Wrehasnaya, and Christian Franke. It’s got a bit of seed funding from backers including 500 Startups. See the full article here.

A Better Florist

Making it clear that localized online-to-offline (O2O) startups will dominate our Arena this year, another startup to pitch will be A Better Florist. It’s focused on Singapore.

The startup wants to cut out the many middlemen in the traditional retail chain by sourcing flowers directly from neighboring Malaysia. That also ensures fresher flowers than are found in most stores, the team claims.

Founder Steve Feiner is a former Googler who left to start his own venture. It’s currently self-funded at this early stage – it has four staffers right now. See the full article here.

U-Hop

U-Hop is like Uber for shuttle buses in the Philippines. While startups like Uber and Grabtaxi are just clogging up the capital of Manila, a city branded the worst for traffic on the planet, U-Hop is taking up less space by putting regular commuters into comfortable minibuses.

All trips are scheduled and paid in advance (because commuters), and it works out to about US$2.50 for a roundtrip each day. That’s a lot cheaper than a cab or an Uber – and yet you’re guaranteed a seat on an air-conned shuttle bus. There’s also an on-demand option that’s metered like an Uber.

The U-Hop team.

Like Uber, U-Hop aggregates vehicles from an array of local companies or individual owners.

The founder is Marvin dela Cruz. He has worked in the transportation industry for 15 years. Prior to founding this new venture, Marvin owned a car rental company. See the full article here.

KoreaBuys

Ecommerce store KoreaBuys is a true global citizen – a site for buying products from South Korea aimed at shoppers across Southeast Asia. The first target market is Indonesia.

The store is a marketplace for Korean brands, with vendors vetted to ensure that it’s not getting imposters jumping on the Korean wave of pop culture that swelled up long before that catchy Gangnam Style trotted onto the airwaves.

After hitting an early stumbling block with international shipping from vendors in Korea, the startup then set up fulfillment centers closer to where users are based, enabling the store to ship in a more timely manner and offer important services like quick product returns, explains founder Alex Won. See the full article here.

LunchClick

There are a ton of dating apps out there, so any new entrant needs to have a twist. LunchClick, a Singapore-oriented app, is only for serious relationships. No hook-ups, no married dudes looking for a bit on the side. Singaporeans have to key in their identification numbers.

The Lunch Actually team.

Another unique thing is that there’s no chat feature. You get one suggested match per day, and the focus is on setting up a date – or not. No chatter or bluster. Save that for the coffee date.

“With chat it’s not multi-faceted […] you’re not seeing his body language, you’re not seeing her facial expressions,” says Violet Lim, CEO of Lunch Actually, which makes the app. See the full article here.

Q&Me

Q&Me gets quick and responsive market research done for companies by paying users to complete surveys on their phones. Respondents get US$0.10 per completed survey. They can redeem this money in the form of phone top-up credit. As an extra incentive, there are occasional prizes based on lucky draws. Completing one survey takes about 10 minutes.

Q&Me’s Kengo Kurokawa.

The business is focused initially on Vietnam. It may expand next to Thailand or Indonesia.

The startup was founded by Kengo Kurokawa, a Japanese marketer turned entrepreneur living in Vietnam. See the full article here.

Spacemarket

Spacemarket is like Airbnb for a variety of venues – for renting an entire movie theater, a private island, or even a baseball stadium. It’s based in Japan but with ambitions to go global.

The Spacemarket team. Hideki is pictured front and center.

Spacemarket founder and CEO Daisuke Shigematsu was inspired to launch a venue rental startup while working at a startup that provided professional photographers. While the photographers took wedding photos, he noticed that so many sizeable venues are empty for stretches of time. See the full article here.

Which team do you think will come out on top? Hit the comments!