CapitalBay Wins BetaPitch Kuala Lumpur
The inaugural BetaPitch Kuala Lumpur hosted by MDEC and betahaus – held last week – saw CapitalBay, a Malaysian based data driven supply chain platform, awarded as the winner of the startup competition. As the winners, CapitalBay will travel to Berlin on 15th of November 2018 to attend Investor Day, and to represent Southeast Asia against global startup finalists from each of the twelve regional BetaPitch competitions. CapitalBay was also awarded with prize money of €5,000, a trip to the Silicon Valley, a free co-working space at Berlin-based co-working hub betahaus for one month and assistance for market access through betahaus’ European network. (CapitalBay was awarded with 1 month free co working space and a trip to Berlin, Germany to compete in Betapitch Global – Investors Day to go against finalists from twelve countries)
“We are proud to win the first ever BetaPitch startup competition in Kuala Lumpur, which is an acknowledgement for all the hard work we have invested in the past two years in enabling executing SME financing faster, cheaper and better with our digital onboarding process. We have a powerful mission with a scalable solution, and we are glad that BetaPitch opened up the opportunity for us to enter the EU startups ecosystem, in exploring financing the EU-Malaysia trade corridor,” says Darrel Ang, Co-Founder of CapitalBay.
BetaPitch is a global startup competition taking place in twelve countries around the world (Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Egypt, Bosnia, Turkey, South Korea and Malaysia).
Out of over 56startups that applied for BetaPitch Kuala Lumpur, 10 were selected to pitch at the finals. The jury was made up of stakeholders across the government and the venture capital sector:
- Norhizam Kadir – VP, Growth Ecosystem Development, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)
- Iva Jankovic – COO, betahaus
- Dato’ Arulchelvam – Investor & Advisor, Visual EFX, Media Medik & Krypto POS
- Bikesh Lakhmichand – CEO, 1337 Ventures
- Johnathan Lee – Executive Director, Malaysia Global Innovation & Creative Centre (MaGIC)
Norhizam Abdul Kadir, Vice President of Growth Ecosystem Development at MDEC,said “It was a hard decision for the jury to pick a single winner as all of the contestants delivered their business ideas with passion. In the end CapitalBay won because of their strong value proposition. They have a close-knit team working on a scalable business model that already has a good market traction in Asia and have the potential to scale further in Europe.”
With German businesses being at the forefront of global innovation, and Berlin being the startup capital of Europe, MDEC has decided to host the first BetaPitch competition with betahaus in Southeast Asia. The partnership with betahaus will help smooth the way for Southeast Asian startups to enter the German and European markets and allow them to leverage upon betahaus’s network and expertise. The BetaPitch competition will let us showcase the inherent potential of technology startups based here and across Southeast Asia.”
The selected startups that participated in the finals were:
- Borderpass– Airport immigration autogate startup
- Mobiversa– Mobile card terminal developer;
- Sales Candy– Sales Funnel CRM
- Capital Bay– Supply Chain and Financing Management Provider
- Favoriot– an IoT Project Planner
- Hyped Mind AI -a mobile App developer
- Luxtag by NEM – a Blockchain-based anti-counterfeit and theft technology provider
- GridMarkets– a Cloud-based content processing platform
- Petbacker– a Dog Home Boarding and Pet Sitting App
- Aglonera – an Indonesian E-Commerce platform.
Earlier this year, MDEC had signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with betahaus and Startup AsiaBerlin (SUAB) in Germany, aimed at accelerating the cross-market penetration by businesses and entrepreneurs between the two countries. betahaus will provide a soft-landing zone and assistance to Malaysia-based companies seeking to enter into the German and European markets and channel businesses in its network eyeing the Southeast Asian market to MDEC. In return, MDEC will provide betahaus’ recommended start-ups easy access to Malaysia Digital Hubs, as well as business advisory and assistance.
