Twenty travel tech startups plus five wildcard participants have been selected for the first round of the Global Startup Pitch. The competition, which is in its second year, is jointly produced by WiT and Phocuswright.
Judges selected these startups from a crop of more than
120 entries received for the global competition to surface the best travel
startups across five different regions of the world.
Here are the first round participants:
Asia Pacific
Middle East & Africa
Europe
Americas
A Wildcards category was created by Phocuswright
and WiT to surface
ideas that are particularly global, future-oriented, hard to solve and attack
next-generation challenges.
“We are always on the lookout for ideas that don’t
quite fit into a box but are worth surfacing,” said Pete Comeau, managing
director of Phocuswright.
They are:
Wildcards
Added Comeau, “We're genuinely enthused by
the exceptional quality and diversity represented in the submissions. We have
seen a multitude of startups striving to address issues prevalent in the hospitality industry, a
recurring trend over the years. Still, we're also witnessing innovative strategies to age-old problems such as optimizing
payments, utilizing AI to forecast travel demand and improving travel
discovery.
Subscribe to our newsletter below
“We have some amazing female founders,
startups from all corners of the world, including Japan, Mexico and New
Zealand, and some travel adjacent companies pushing our industry to think
bigger. We've brought together a distinguished group of judges who will assist
in identifying the best startups poised to take on some of the most significant
industry challenges.”
“We want to thank our panel of judges, who
did the hard work to get us to this first round, which will be aired live on
May 24. Three per region/category will be picked to enter the second round on
August 24, and the chosen finalists will pitch live for the grand prize at WiT
Singapore, Oct 2-4,” said Yeoh Siew Hoon, founder of WiT.
The criteria that judges
apply to the startups throughout the competition include viability, customer
appeal, technical innovation, sustainability, team and the X factor.
The Global
Startup Pitch Competition is part of an ongoing commitment to cultivate
innovation through activities including WiT Bootcamps, Phocuswright Startup
Program, Hot25 Startups, Summit and an industry-driving global network of
leaders on the edge of innovation.
To watch Round 1 of the Global Startup
Pitch, sign up here.
Phocuswright Europe 2023
Some of Europe's smartest investors share their views on the state of startups and how to pick winners for travel’s next era.