SGE awards for most memorable cloud & enterprise pitches at DEMO Asia

Several startups in the cloud and enterprise space presented during Demo Asia 2012 this morning, some of which were memorable. Since this is Oscars season in Hollywood, we’re giving each startup our own awards just for fun.

The No-Brainer Pitch award: Tradesparq

Tradesparq allows merchants and businesses to search through AliBaba suppliers and then ranks them based on the social networks and contacts  of the merchant. It is likened to LinkedIn plus AliBaba.

Their presentation of trying to find a kitchen sink supplier in AliBaba showed that AliBaba had no problem returning thousands of results but had a problem in terms of finding a supplier that can be trusted. This filtering is done based on the trust established amongst your existing network.

The panel straight after the pitches was quite unanimous and effusive in their praise of Tradesparq as well for their product-market fit.

The Highly Promising Pitch award: Hoiio API

For those of you who are into consumer-driven, social and local mobile apps, APIs are bound to turn you off immediately. Luckily, I am covering this segment and I have to say, as someone who knows programming, Hoiio and their Hoiio API allow developers to quickly develop voicerelated telephone apps.

Of course, Twilio is operating in the same space as them. So Hoiio’s play would be to quickly be the same thing but for Asian telcos.

Given the difficulties of negotiating with the various telcos across different countries and legal domains, Hoiio has a chance to play catch up in this area.

The YummyMummy award: UrbanCook

UrbanCook presents food recipes that are geographically relevant based on social feedback from GPS. It targets busy mothers.

One interesting aspect of UrbanCook is that the mobile app can scan barcodes of canned foods and generate a list of recipes that uses that very same canned food as an ingredient.

The Freedom Award: DropMyEmail.com