And the Startup Arena 2012 Winner is… Teamie

This post is a part of our coverage of Startups in Asia (Singapore), Penn Olson’s first tech conference.

Teamie's Shivanu Shukla and Ashwin Singh (left & centre) receive the US$10,000 cheque for winning the first-ever Startup Arena competition. Great work, guys!

A full 19 startups entered our Startup Arena competition, but only one comes out alive… Well, with a huge cheque for US$10,000. And the winner is… Teamie. The educational collaboration platform was deemed the startup most disruptive and with the most potential in terms of revenue and scope. Take a look at Teamie’s startup pitch, which they presented yesterday, to see what you make of it. It’s not just about cash and glory, they also win some great kit: Lenovo E220s laptops, Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phones, a SkySQL premium subscription package, and an Amazon Kindle Fire with $1,200 worth of credit.

The judges decided that Innova, which helps you stop losing things using GPS tech, was pretty neat as well, and it places in second. The second place finisher is awarded Lenovo E420 laptops, Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phones (yes, running WP7), a SkySQL premium package, and a Kindle Fire with $600 of credit in it.

Third place finishers Start Now also won E420 laptops, while fourth and fifth place finishers – Waffle, and Piktochart respectively – also got Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phones.

The Startup Arena competition, part of Penn Olson‘s two day Startups in Asia Singapore conference, was judged by Ash Singh (CEO at InteractiveSG, Investor at Angel’s Gate), Daniel Saito (co-founder and director at SkySQL, angel investor), Eric Koh (CTO at Jobscentral, partner at Iconic Ventures), and James Tan (co-founder of 55tuan, managing partner at QuestVC). A handpicked group of nineteen startups were each given a chance to make their pitches to the judges and an audience of investors and other conference attendees over the two-day event. The winner was decided based on the average of the points given to all the startupss by the judging panel.

Willis Wee, the Singaporen founder of Penn Olson, said:

I think Startup Arena was a great success, and it has once again proven that Asia doesn’t lack for excellent tech startups. I thought all nineteen of the startups gave excellent pitches. And, beyond the prizes, I think this event has helped raise their profiles and given them some great exposure to the investor and startup community. We’ll continue to follow them on Penn Olson going forward, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Much credit and gratitude is due to the companies and investors who sponsored the event – led by our platinum sponsor GREE – and the many who actively participated in it as well.

Please browse our Startup Arena tag to view the full line-up of 19 contenders, replete with screenshots, live pitch photos, and some embedded slideshows too.