Travel firm to vie for start-up title

Triip.Me, a crowd-sourced travel service, was voted Best Startup of Vietnam during a competition held in HCM City last weekend by Seedstars World, a global startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup scenes.

The representative of the company will compete with another 29 finalists around the globe during a four-day bootcamp in Switzerland. The winner will receive US$500,000 in equity investment.

Taembe, an e-commerce startup specialising in baby products, and Cloudjet Solution, a SME-focused business software startup won the second and third prize of the regional competition round in HCM City.

After its first successful edition in 2013 across 20 cities, Seedstars World expanded its competition to more than 30 countries.

Seedstars World first-place winner last year was Flitto, an innovative crowd-sourcing translation platform developed in Korea.

This year, the competition made its debut in Vietnam.

Julien Berthomier, Seedstars World organiser and jury member, said Vietnam, and especially HCM City, is known as a good place for startups in Southeast Asia.

Enterprises registered in the contest must have a strong background, even though they are still young companies, he said.

Enterprises that are eligible must have less than US$500,000 in capital investment, and a maximum two years of operation with a product that has been introduced on the market.

The Seedstars competition is expected to grow worldwide and put the fastest-growing startup scenes on the map.

The next stop of the tour is Seedstars Manila on August 27.

It continues on to Jakarta, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Mexico City, Bogota, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.