Southeast Asia’s startups have helped build a thriving internet economy. Now, they have an equally important role to play in the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic—and in tackling some of the biggest challenges Southeast Asia faces around education, health, e-commerce, logistics and financial technology.
In June, we launched Google for Startups Accelerator: Southeast Asia, a three-month online program to support startups working on social, economic and health problems across the region. We received more than 600 applications, and today we’re announcing the 15 startups chosen for the first cohort.
Over the next few months, these startups will receive mentorship on both technical and business challenges. We’ll also connect them to teams from Google and the wider technology industry, and provide workshops focused on designing products, customer service and leadership development for founders.
Here’s the full list of startups. We can’t wait to help them move their ideas forward as they make a difference for Southeast Asians over the next decade and beyond.
- Advance (Philippines) is a credit platform that provides short-term salary advances for Filipino employees.
- DeafTawk (Pakistan) has created a digital sign language interpretation service platform that breaks down communication barriers.
- GIZTIX (Thailand) is an integrated logistics platform that helps customers grow their businesses and reduce operating costs.
- Hacktiv8 (Indonesia) helps train beginner developers, supports them in finding jobs and provides a new, fairer type of student loan.
- Kata.ai (Indonesia) has developed a conversational artificial intelligence platform that enables more natural conversations between businesses and their customers.
- MHub (Malaysia) is an end-to-end property transaction platform which makes the process of buying a home easier by linking property developers, real-estate agents and potential customers.
- Riliv (Indonesia) has created an online counseling and meditation app to help people with their mental health.
- Rumarocket (Philippines) has developed an AI tool that helps companies make hiring decisions using behavioral science.
- Sehat Kahani (Pakistan) is working on providing access to affordable, technology-enabled healthcare via a network of qualified home-based women doctors.
- SenzeHub (Singapore) offers a wearable, AI-powered device that determines a patient’s location and does vitals reading and crisis detection.
- Shoplinks (Singapore) provides consumer-goods clients with tools to digitize their customer engagements and promotions.
- Smartfuture (Singapore) is a telemedicine platform and self-monitoring diagnostic kiosk that allows users to check key health vitals
- Thuocsi.vn (Vietnam) is an online platform to buy medicine, first aid and dispensary items
- TopCV (Vietnam) is a recruitment platform that better connects recruiters and candidates.
- Walee (Pakistan) is a trading app to connect businesses looking to sell items online with social influencers who want to collaborate with them.
