This startup won the Kuala Lumpur leg of Tech in Asia Tour

Four handpicked startups fought it out for the winner’s title at Impact Hub Kuala Lumpur yesterday evening at the second-last stop on our Tech in Asia Tour.

Witnessing the pitch battle was an eager audience and three esteemed judges: Tim Marbach of Asia Venture Group, Bikesh Lakhmichand from 1337 Ventures, and Kelvin Goh from Crystal Horse Investments.

To get things moving, Natalija Snapkauskaite from Growth Hacking Asia shared pointers in a keynote on what it takes a company to shift into high growth mode. Following immediately after, we turned our attention to the four-way pitch battle.

Scout

Expanding companies often face a common issue: they’re not hiring talent at a rate fast enough to effectively keep up with growth. Scout wants to help these companies keep pace by exploiting an under-tapped recruitment source – employee referrals.

Their product is a mobile app that transfers HR access directly to employees by allowing them to refer available job positions to people they know, even on the go. Its mobility is a distinct advantage over traditional referral programs operated over the company’s intranet.

This enables leaders to easily view how effectively employees are referring and build customised rewards and perks program to engage them better. According to the startup, this also helps to creates a culture of ownership within the workplace. For highly specialised roles, human resource managers can opt to receive referrals from Scout bots that go through over 100 million resumes online to find matching candidates.

The team boasts a strong collective track record in hiring from their previous managerial roles, and also has a specialised recruiter on their team.

Sqooge

If you’ve been to events such as weddings or concerts where plenty of photos are taken, you might have wondered how you can gain access to these photos. It’s not easy, as lots of good photos are taken by strangers.

This is a question Sqooge hopes to answer with its location-based photo sharing app, Camdy. It enables people within a 7km radius to collate these photos into an album for easy sharing – even without exchanging any contact information. On top of it all, every photo is meant to retain its high resolution without slowing down the speed at which the photos load.

The team has started to approach professional photographers and event managers to try it out, and they have plans to kickstart inbound and outbound marketing to grow Sqooge’s user base.

Gaption

Gaption is a digital ecosystem created with the intent of allowing people to monetize their passion, skills, and content. The startup claims to be a fusion of several technologies to create a seamless integration for people to do everything they want to on a single platform.

Its functions include a social networking platform, an ecommerce front for users to sell items, and productivity features.To top it off, the startup shares its revenue with the community in exchange for their content and social activities in the hope of building a fair, sharing economy.

See: Unlike Facebook, this new social network pays for your content

My AOne Learning

Touting itself as the Airbnb for classes in Malaysia, My AOne Learning aims to be the one-stop marketplace for those keen to pick up new skills or generate income from teaching. By eliminating a human agent and allowing users to review and rate lesson providers, it minimizes a student’s risk of signing up for lousy classes.

My AOne Learning isn’t an app limited only to academic tutors – it lists local classes ranging from sports and fitness, to cooking and baking lessons. The most asked-after lessons right now are baby swimming classes.

Currently operating in Malaysia and Singapore, the team has eyes on Indonesia next.

See: Malaysia’s My Aone Learning wants to be the Airbnb for all types of lessons

The startup joining us in Jakarta…

The judges came to a unanimous decision not long after deliberating over the four startups. Congratulations to My AOne Learning for being selected to represent Malaysia at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2015!

The startup’s proven business traction and demand from an addressable market size were key in giving them the extra edge over the rest. My AOne Learning has won itself a sponsored trip to Tech in Asia Jakarta 2015 on November 11 and 12 to exhibit at Bootstrap Alley. Swing by the startup’s booth and see for yourself what they’re getting up to in the lucrative education market!

Passes to Tech in Asia Jakarta are going at a 15 percent discount, only until 25 October (code: tiajkt15). Get yours today to chat with My Aone Learning and lots of other exciting startups showcasing at the conference.

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