Here are the 5 startups we met at Tech in Asia Tour Taipei

(L-R) AppWorks partner Jamie Lin; Tina Cheng, a partner at Cherubic Ventures; and Yasuhiro Seo, general manager of IMJ Investment Partners onstage before the pitching began.

Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, was the latest stop on our eight-city tour, in which we’re luring startups to follow us all the way to Japan for our next conference, like we’re some kind of caffeine-fueled Pied Piper of tech.

The prize for the top startup in each city is an all-expenses-paid trip to Tech in Asia Tokyo 2015, our next flagship conference. It’ll be a chance for the winning startup to meet potential users and investors, all while showing off their wares at the free Bootstrap Alley booth we’ll provide for them. We’ll throw in some free coffee.

Helping us pick the best of the bunch at Tech in Asia Tour Taipei were three Southeast Asia experts. The two local Taiwanese were Tina Cheng, a partner at Cherubic Ventures, and AppWorks partner Jamie Lin. They were joined by Yasuhiro Seo, who covers the fast-growing region for IMJ Investment Partners. The venue was Your Space in central Taipei.

Post-pitching networking: VC Tina Cheng meets attendees.

Here are the five local startups we met in Taipei, in alphabetical order. Who won? Find out below.

1. FlipMed

FlipMed is working on a smart otoendoscope (designed to go into the middle ear) and a diagnostic service to go with it that connects patients with doctors via the web.

Making a pitch to the trio of judges, FlipMed’s Daniel Huang said it’s currently in clinical trials. He claimed the smart device has a big advantage over telemedicine startups because the gadget sends results to doctors, who can prescribe medicine. So the web-based part of the service is not just an online consultation.

Huang pitched it as a time-saver for people who might be unable to get to a clinic. The startup will aim the smart otoendoscope at the Taiwan market first before taking it to China and across Southeast Asia.

2. Linqapp

Linqapp is a mobile-only way to get crowdsourced translations from native speakers. It’s designed for situations where the regular translation tools won’t suffice and you need help from a fellow global citizen. Translators earn money by giving quality translations and responses.

Making his pitch in front of the packed audience, Linqapp co-founder Sebastian Ang pointed to the US$40 billion worldwide market for translators, which includes the kind of more casual, hey does anyone know what this means? queries that the app specializes in.

3. Phone Doctor

Phone Doctor is an iOS and Android app that diagnoses the state of your phone. But the startup sees that as just the beginning. The killer feature, which will be added in to the app soon, is a recycling service that uses the diagnostics as a way to prove that a phone being sold is in good condition. With that evidence, people can get better prices than on current recycle programs, claimed Ryan Cheng during his pitch.

Cheng said he foresees Phone Doctor becoming a trading platform for second-hand phones. The team will start off with iPhones, which generally hold a strong resale value, before exploring the market for old Androids. He thinks the idea of selling off your phone will become a lot more popular once people “can see prices changing every day” in the app.

Once the trading platform is in place, Phone Doctor will go from being a paid to a free app.

4. TixChart

TixChart is a search engine for plane tickets on low-cost carriers (LCC). These budget airlines are particularly popular in Southeast Asia, where they account for more than half of the flight market, which is above the global average. That’s the fact with which Outland co-founder Peter Chen started out his pitch for the site.

It wants to offer people a way to see when’s the cheapest time to book, showing charts of the fluctuating prices on offer from budget carriers in the weeks ahead.

The aim is for TixChart to make money from referrals, ads, and affiliate deals with hotels or car-hire companies. The idea is that affiliate programs will bring in most of the money.

The search site already covers over 1,000 destinations and now has 50,000 monthly active users, Chen stated.

5. U Know I Know

U Know I Know is a site for searching and booking classes and workshops in your city. To make things safer for students, the startup holds the class fees in escrow for seven days so that a refund is possible if the class is bad.

It has 500 course providers on the books, alongside 15,000 users so far. It takes 10 to 20 percent commission on orders.

The growth plan for U Know I Know includes expanding to cover online courses.

And the winner is…

In the end, the judges selected Linqapp as the winner from Taipei.

Meet Linqapp and an array of quality startups from across the continent at Tech in Asia Tokyo 2015, which will be held on September 8 and 9. Tickets are still available for purchase here.

Our next Tour stop is in Hong Kong on July 9.

Thank you to our partners in friendly, sunny Taipei