PriyoShop emerges as champion at Alibaba Cloud Pitch Battle

On October 26, we held a pitch battle in partnership with Alibaba Cloud, where nine handpicked startups presented their businesses to a panel of three investor-judges: James Liu, business development advisor for Alibaba Group’s cloud intelligence division; Brandon Kim, investment associate at KK Fund; and Khushbu Topandasani, senior investment associate at Vertex Ventures.

This event is part of Project AsiaForward’s Alibaba Cloud Global Startup Accelerator Program, through which the company will invest US$1 billion to nurture digital talent, entrepreneurs, and technologies in Asia – particularly Southeast Asia – over the next three years, with support from Alibaba Cloud’s platform.

Judged based on the clarity of their ideas and business models, as well as their investment-worthiness, the startups were given five minutes to make their best pitches and another five minutes to answer questions.

The winning pitch was presented by Bangladesh-based ecommerce firm PriyoShop, which walked away with US$60,000 in Alibaba Cloud credits as well as other attractive perks.

Here’s an overview of the nine participating startups.

Bizbaz

More than 70% of Southeast Asia – over 460 million people – is still unbanked or underbanked. Because of this, financial institutions lack data on potential lenders, leading to billions of dollars worth of bank loans being defaulted.

Bizbaz CEO Hayk Hakobyan / Photo credit: Bizbaz

Bizbaz hopes to address this issue by providing credit scoring services that use a wide range of data points, including their lifestyle, financial, social, and health-related habits. The Singapore-headquartered startup leverages insights from behavioral science, AI, and machine learning to offer comprehensive and reliable infrastructure and intelligence to financial institutions, fintech firms, and ecommerce companies.

FusionQB

The pandemic has disconnected businesses from their customers. This is especially so for traditional firms, which can sometimes lack the necessary data, technological know-how, and capital to spend on customer engagement.

FusionQB’s team / Photo credit: FusionQB

That’s where FusionQB comes in. The Malaysia-headquartered customer engagement firm collects data from various sources to help businesses understand their customers and uncover hidden patterns in their behavior. This enables its clients to provide a seamless experience to their customers, which strengthens brand loyalty.

HomeCrowd

Due to rising costs, increasingly long wait times for new flats due to Covid-19, and complex housing loan applications, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Asian millennials to own property.

HomeCrowd founder Dave Chew / Photo credit: HomeCrowd

Malaysia-based HomeCrowd is solving that problem through holistic data-driven credit scoring, which helps millennial homebuyers access mortgage loans. It is the first company in Malaysia to be licensed and regulated by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government for peer-to-peer lending for mortgage and consumer financing.

Ghost Kitchen Bangladesh

Small and medium-sized restaurants struggle to survive due to fierce competition, especially from big chains with well-known brand names, lower cost of operations, higher marketing budgets, and access to better technologies.

Ghost Kitchen Bangladesh co-founders (from left) Syed Tahmid Zaman and Ashraful Hoque Chayon / Photo credit: Ghost Kitchen Bangladesh

Ghost Kitchen Bangladesh hopes to change that. The firm’s all-in-one restaurant management platform, Onnow.io, enables these businesses to take charge of their supply chain, online ordering, and kitchen management. The company has been recognized by numerous global organizations, including the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, United Nations World Food Programme, and SUN Business Network.

Philoit

For young millennials, it can be difficult to find answers to questions, especially pertaining to their careers and personal lives. On top of that, seeking expert consultation can be expensive for those who’ve just entered the workforce.

Philoit founder Aldi Tahir / Photo credit: Philoit

Enter Philoit, an Indonesia-based startup that runs a question-and-answer-based discussion platform, as well as a consultation marketplace where users can seek help at an affordable price. The company has over 82,000 registered users on its platform, with more than 500 questions and answers posted every day.

Quipy

Small businesses in Indonesia have had a hard time surviving during the pandemic. One way they’ve adapted to the crisis is pivoting online. However, without the capital to spend on manpower, they may sometimes be slow to answer customer queries. It doesn’t help that most buyers prefer interacting with real people instead of bots.

Quipy CEO Stefany Stefany / Photo credit: Quipy

Quipy is working to address that issue. The Indonesia-based keyboard app lets online sellers access product information and transaction lists via any messaging platform seamlessly, allowing them to reply to their customers quickly and efficiently.

Savour

Food waste is a big problem around the world. In Singapore alone, 744 million kilograms of food was wasted in 2019. What’s more, a sizable amount of food waste is still edible.

The Savour team / Photo credit: Savour

Singapore-headquartered Savour is solving this problem with its cloud-based platform. The business-to-business procurement and sponsorship marketplace connects merchants with expiring, blemished, and surplus food to non-profit organizations, event planners, and companies at bulk discounts, utilizing data to redefine the procurement process and help users save money while saving the Earth.

Timogah

Farmers in rural areas can find it difficult to market their agricultural produce. Despite that, food imports in Malaysia have increased over the years.

Timogah founder Heineken Laluan / Photo credit: Timogah

Timogah aims to bridge this gap by using technology to market local produce. The Sarawak-based digital marketplace helps rural farmers, food producers, local hawkers, and small retailers sell their goods on its platform, while also providing the convenience of online shopping and delivery services to buyers.

Winning startup: PriyoShop

Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) often have less capital, limited access to brands, and lower stock quantities. Bangladesh-based PriyoShop lets small retailers overcome these barriers by matching them with big brands and helping them manage end-to-end fulfillment – from payments to logistics – effectively bringing ecommerce to rural India.

PriyoShop co-founders (from left) Asikul Alam Khan and Dipty Mandal / Photo credit: PriyoShop

With its retail-facing app, the online marketplace enables MSMEs to sell a wide range of products from brands like Asus, Philips, and Samsung directly to their customers. PriyoShop’s app also allows individual merchants to sell products such as clothing, electronics, and books to online shoppers.

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Alibaba Cloud is the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group. It provides a comprehensive suite of global computing services to startups, corporations, and government organizations worldwide.

Find out more about Alibaba Cloud’s range of services here.

This content was produced by Tech in Asia Studios, which connects brands with Asia’s tech community. Learn more about partnering with Tech in Asia Studios.