This startup impressed judges at the Tech in Asia Jakarta Tour kick-off

TIA is on the road again! The Tech in Asia Jakarta Tour 2015 kicked off tonight in Indonesia’s capital to hunt for the best startups in town.

As usual, we hand-picked five great local startups and invited them to pitch three expert VCs. Takeshi Ebihara of Rebright Partners, Luke Roush of Sovereign’s Capital, and Vivek Ladsariya of Fenox Venture Capital were on board as judges tonight.

One lucky startup will travel to TIA’s upcoming Tech in Asia Jakarta Conference. It’ll get a free booth on Bootstrap Alley, and we even take care of flights and accommodation.

After Jakarta, the tour will hit nine more cities all across Asia, including New Delhi, Manila, and Tokyo.

Want to know which startup emerged as the top contestant from Jakarta? Read on.

Labconx

Labconx is health startup that partners with labs. Users looking for a medical test lab can use the site to find the best lab for their needs. They can book appointments via the site and are guaranteed cheaper prices by doing so. The startup claims to already have seven major labs on board. Users can also later retrieve their test results online.

How is Labconx able to provide better prices than the labs offer directly? The founders are keeping that a secret for now.

Spacehype

Spacehype is a startup aimed at helping people find the perfect space for their events, such as meetups, parties, or even art exhibitions. It’s a marketplace where space owners can list their venues. The site provides an online payment system so users can book properties directly. In other words, it’s Airbnb for event spaces. It thinks its customers can include individuals but also enterprises such as professional event organizers.

Spacehype has not officially launched yet. It plans to do so by early 2016 with 500 spaces for rent in Jakarta.

Komisian

Komisian is a dropshipping platform that allows anyone to become an online seller without having to own the product, warehouse, or even handle the shipping process. Say what?

Komisian’s tagline is “nyari duit tanpa duit” which roughly translates to “make money without money.” It’s aimed at people who believe they can leverage their network on social media, or other online sales channels to successfully sell Komisian’s products.

Bigalia

Bigalia is B2B ecommerce site that sells and rents industrial products online like excavators, dump trucks, or even farm tractors. Its target customers are mining, forestry, and construction companies, as well as farmers.

Co-founder Indra Rukasyah has been in this niche business for a long time, and thinks it’s time to take it online. There are too many inefficiencies in the way seekers and manufacturers of such equipment communicate, she says.

Chatkoo

Chatkoo is an auto-reply bot that helps business owners keep up with the customer messages that reach them via chat apps like BBM, WeChat, and Telegram.

In Southeast Asia, communication between potential customers and online vendors often occurs through these chat apps. Chatkoo helps vendors automate this process. So far, its auto-respond messages can do things like provide a link to a product or even schedule an appointment.

Who’s going to Bootstrap Alley?

After each presentation, the judges asked questions and gave feedback. Labconx’s pitch left the judges asking what problem it is solving in first place. It wasn’t clear why the team believes people need to shop around for labs. When it came to Spacehype, the judges feared that the market it addresses is too small, and that the idea might not work outside of Jakarta.

The judges liked the concept of Komisian a lot, since they thought it’s really well suited to the Indonesian market. However, they thought the fact Komisian plans to hold some of the inventory itself poses a risk, and that margins may not be high enough to translate into a huge business opportunity. After Chatkoo’s presentation, the judges weren’t clear about the revenue streams, and thought that the transactional model (being paid a small amount for each autoreply message) might not be enough of a business opportunity.

The main criticism the judges had for Bigalia was that there may not be enough buyers and sellers in this particular space to make a marketplace work. They also thought the business model still sounded vague. But, in the end, Bigalia was crowned the winner.

The judges explained that, despite the fact that the business model will still need work, this particular market is interesting and uniquely Indonesian. They liked the fact that the founder has years of experience in the field, and that so far, there has not yet been an attempt to disrupt the market for heavy machines in Indonesia. All of this gave them confidence that Bigalia could turn into something big and meaningful with more work on the founder’s part, and the right mentorship.

Thanks to our cool partners

Baidu is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. As a technology-based media company, Baidu aims to provide the best and most equitable way for people to find what they’re looking for. Baidu established a presence in Indonesia with the opening of its Jakarta office in 2013. Since then, its family of mobile and PC products have gained a significant local following, with millions of people using and enjoying them on a regular basis.

Baidu’s product family in Indonesia includes the Android marketplace MoboMarket, the Android utility apps DU Battery Saver and DU Speed Booster, the mobile browser Baidu Browser and more. Together, Baidu’s products and services in Indonesia have tens of millions of frequent users.