Pitch, Battle, and Win US$10,000 at Startup Arena in Jakarta, Applications Now Open!

We wrapped up our inaugural Startup Arena two months back. And because we’ve been getting really positive and awesome feedback from you guys, we are really excited to announce that the next one will be held on June 7 and 8 in Jakarta! The venue will be the Upperroom at the Annex building.

Startup Arena is a startup competition for entrepreneurs run within Startup Asia Jakarta 2012, serving as an excellent launchpad for startups to get a headstart in Asia’s mobile and internet industry. About 20 startups will be selected to pitch and challenge on the Arena stage in front of top investors, industry leaders, and the press for a top prize of US$10,000.

So, if you know you have the next winning idea, what are you waiting for? Submit your application here today!

Since submissions will be reviewed based on a first-come-first-served basis, it would to your advantage to submit your application early so you’ll have plenty of time to start preparing your killer pitch.

In order to compete in Startup Arena Jakarta, your demo is a primary requirement, and pitches have to be done in English. Have stage fright? No worries, the team at Startup Arena will provide a week-by-week pitch consultation in the run-up to the event to help practice your pitch.

In case you were wondering, the previous Startup Arena Singapore competition attracted about 300 applications, out of which 19 startups were selected to compete. If you’re curious to see what the ideas were, you can catch all of the pitches here.

Teamie (picture right), an educational collaboration platform, walked away as our Startup Arena Singapore winner last time round. Along with Teamie, we’re also pleased to tell you guys that other finalists at Startup Arena Singapore have gone on to secure seed funding – namely GushCloud and Phroni. We’d like to think that our Startup Arena played a small part in these success stories, and we’re hearing rumblings that investment rounds for some of our other Arena alumni are also in the pipeline.

Shivanu Shukla, the co-founder of Teamie, commented on his experience from Startup Arena:

Arena gave me confidence in my pitching skills, and the validation from the judges and the audience in our startup. Of course, winning Arena was a huge deal to me and my team. As an entrepreneur you are constantly battling challenges, and sometimes you need some external motivations. It’s great to get validation for your idea, your company and the hard work that everyone in the team is putting behind it.

Teamie was [practically] in stealth mode when Startup Arena happened, and then suddenly we became the startup people wanted to know about, talk to, and explore opportunities with. We’ve managed to link with a few investors and are having discussions with them, all thanks to Startup Arena.

So if you have a winning idea, mark the dates on your calendar and apply today. See you at Startup Arena Jakarta on June 7 and 8!