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Start-up Competition

Local Artificial Intelligence Firm NextBillion.ai Wins Start-up Competition

By Siddhi --
Wednesday, 16 Dec, 2020

Local artificial intelligence (AI) start-up NextBillion.ai was crowned winner of Enterprise Singapore's start-up competition Slingshot yesterday.

It beat nine other finalists from such countries as Canada, Israel and Britain to take home a $200,000 Startup SG grant, $50,000 in cash and six months' use of a serviced office space.

About 7,500 start-ups from 159 countries took part in this year's competition, and the top 10 pitched their ideas virtually to a panel of judges yesterday at the Singapore FinTech Festival and Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology. Among the judges were B Capital co-founder and managing partner Eduardo Saverin, a co-founder of Facebook, and Mr Forrest Li, founder of tech giant Sea, which has businesses in digital finance and owns e-commerce platform Shopee.

Mr Bulusu said: "The real work starts now and our aim is to build a global deep tech SaaS (software as a service) company out of Singapore.

In the lead-up to yesterday's finals, the top 100 start-ups attended a week-long virtual programme that comprised preparatory workshops and mentoring sessions. Eligible international start-up founders among them will receive an EntrePass, a work visa for entrepreneurs to set up a new business in Singapore.

The start-ups impressed Mr Saverin, who said: "It's inspiring to see the passion and conviction the founders bring to solving problems in vastly different industries - from improving the quality of life of those suffering from chronic medical conditions to driving improvements in logistics via mapping innovation."

Beyond the prize money, such competitions are important drivers for entrepreneurs as they also help founders connect with companies, potential customers and mentors, he added. "Additionally, founders get to connect and learn from other founders, enabling a community of entrepreneurs to help each other along the very challenging start-up journey."

Local Artificial Intelligence Firm NextBillion.ai Wins Start-up Competition. Local artificial intelligence (AI) start-up NextBillion.ai was crowned winner of Enterprise Singapore's start-up competition Slingshot yesterday.

It beat nine other finalists from such countries as Canada, Israel and Britain to take home a $200,000 Startup SG grant, $50,000 in cash and six months' use of a serviced office space.

About 7,500 start-ups from 159 countries took part in this year's competition, and the top 10 pitched their ideas virtually to a panel of judges yesterday at the Singapore FinTech Festival and Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology. Among the judges were B Capital co-founder and managing partner Eduardo Saverin, a co-founder of Facebook, and Mr Forrest Li, founder of tech giant Sea, which has businesses in digital finance and owns e-commerce platform Shopee.

Mr Bulusu said: "The real work starts now and our aim is to build a global deep tech SaaS (software as a service) company out of Singapore.

In the lead-up to yesterday's finals, the top 100 start-ups attended a week-long virtual programme that comprised preparatory workshops and mentoring sessions. Eligible international start-up founders among them will receive an EntrePass, a work visa for entrepreneurs to set up a new business in Singapore.

The start-ups impressed Mr Saverin, who said: "It's inspiring to see the passion and conviction the founders bring to solving problems in vastly different industries - from improving the quality of life of those suffering from chronic medical conditions to driving improvements in logistics via mapping innovation."

Beyond the prize money, such competitions are important drivers for entrepreneurs as they also help founders connect with companies, potential customers and mentors, he added. "Additionally, founders get to connect and learn from other founders, enabling a community of entrepreneurs to help each other along the very challenging start-up journey."