New global startup competition offers $1m funding for the winner

The world has another global startup competition: Startup World Cup.

The stakes are pretty high – the overall winner of the competition is offered a US$1 million equity investment, among other perks. Investors from well-known VC firms like Kleiner Perkins and Y Combinator have agreed to be judges in the finale, according to the organizers.

The force behind the event is Fenox Venture Capital, a VC firm that’s headquartered in the US, but has made over 70 investments in 14 countries, many of them in Southeast Asia’s emerging markets. (Disclosure: Fenox is one of the investors in Tech in Asia. See our ethics page for more.)

Startup World Cup’s process is a little bit like Seedstars World, in that it seeks applicants from across the globe, selects finalists from regional clusters, and then has the best of the crop compete against each other in a final pitch battle.

The Startup World Cup’s regional finals will be held in Indonesia, Germany, Japan, Israel, China, Chile, India, Australia, Taiwan, the US West Coast, and the US East Coast.

The event in Indonesia, for example, will see 10 startups from Southeast Asia compete for the chance to travel to the world finals. The first event of the series is scheduled for August 23 in Jakarta.

After that, more regional finals will be held in the remaining countries, one after the other. The final battle is set to fall on March 24, 2017 and will be held in San Francisco.

The website already takes applications.