Who’s going to Startup Asia Jakarta? The winner of last night’s <em>Tech in Asia</em> Tokyo meetup

Tech in Asia hosted its first meetup in Tokyo last night, culminating in a pitch contest with a grand prize that includes a booth at Startup Asia Jakarta and a pair of flight vouchers to get there. Six founders battled it out – in both Japanese and English – in front of an audience comprised of fellow entrepreneurs, investors, and various members of the capital’s technology and startup community.

Each of the roughly 100 people in attendance (with the exception of Tech in Asia staff) cast a vote for the top pitch. Here are the results, in descending order, with the first place finisher heading to Jakarta:

3rd: Travelience

Travelience is a Japanese trip-planning startup. Its product, TripleLights, offers custom-tailored tours by multi-lingual guides across the country, with a focus on such popular tourist areas as Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. At present, TripleLights employs 120 guides offering 120 different excursions – that include offerings such as Japanese martial arts lessons and Muslim-friendly food outings. CEO Naoaki Hashimoto hinted that a big product pivot is coming in January.

2nd: Sekai Lab

Sekai Lab is an outsourcing startup that connects established Japanese corporations with engineering contractors across Asia, with one caveat: at least one member of the team must be able to communicate in Japanese. Why? To help Japanese companies overcome a deficit of home-grown engineers (without worrying about the language barrier).

1st (grand prize winner): Pocket Supernova

Pocket Supernova’s video messaging app, VideoSelfie, allows users to add real-time effects, animations, motion stamps, and music to short, well, video selfies. The audience seemed particularly intrigued by the app’s 3D face-tracking capability, with a demonstration video showing off digital “masks” that followed a subject’s facial movements and expression. The service boasts 250,000 downloads and 190,000 registered users, including those who migrated from the startup’s previous video messaging service Unda.

“We are excited about getting our foot into Southeast Asia,” said Pocket Supernova co-founder and CEO Oscar Noriega (pictured above). “The selfie phenomenon is huge in the region so it totally makes sense. From the beginning, many people asked us why we picked Japan instead of Silicon Valley. One of our early advisors – George Kellerman from 500 startups – told us, ‘Go to Japan so you can be close to the action’ with the action meaning SEA. He was so right about it.”

See: This startup wants to challenge Instagram and Vine with real-time video editing