Singapore's TurtleTree wins the world's biggest start-up pitch competition in Saudi Arabia
Singapore-based food technology start-up TurtleTree Labs won the Entrepreneurship World Cup 2020, the world's biggest start-up pitch competition in Saudi Arabia, and secured a cash prize of $500,000.
The contest was hosted by the Misk Global Forum that concluded in Riyadh on Monday.
"Despite the constraints of Covid-19, this year’s virtual gathering was bigger and much better than before,” Badr Al Badr, the Misk Foundation's leader, said.
"At Misk we think that immense difficulties present great opportunities, but only to those people who are active and adaptive. We don’t see Generation X, Y, or Z, or 'millennials'; we see 'Generation Solve' - defined around young people’s potential to carefully turn challenges into youth-led solutions.”
The winning start-up TurtleTree creates milk sustainably using cell-based technology. It works together with dairy brands, healthcare and nutrition companies, dairy processors and confectionery brands globally.
“We are addressing the worthiness gap created by an insufficient and unsustainable animal-based dairy industry,” the company’s founder Fengru Lin said.
“Our approach involves working with mammalian cells … to allow them to be cultured, differentiated and induced to lactate,” she said.
Canadian Cleantech start-ups Flite Material Sciences and Genecis Bioindustries won the next and the 3rd prizes worth $250,000 and $100,000 respectively.
Flite uses lasers to improve the top of materials so that they protect themselves from rust, ice, fouling and pathogens, without toxic chemical coatings.
“Our clean, patented technique can protect human life, make safer products and improve professional products in nearly every industry,” Dan Cohen, founder of the business said.
Genecis uses bacteria and synthetic biology tools to transform organic and natural waste into quality value materials and chemicals.
“Our first product line is marine biodegradable polymers that works extremely well to create thermo-resistant packaging, pharmaceutical products and 3D printing filaments,” Robert Celik, Genecis founder, said.
The EWC received entries from more than 175,000 start-ups from practically 200 countries.
Over 1,000 shortlisted start-ups pitched at 65 national finals held across six continents this season, organised and judged by entities from the local entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The most notable 10 finalists competed on Monday for cash prizes totalling $1 million. The top 100 finalists may also get a package of in-kind services valued at $850,000 each.
EWC attracted a lot more than 100,000 candidates from 187 countries in its inaugural event this past year.
Besides awarding the very best three start-ups, there were four “category awards” that fetched each company a cash reward of $50,000.
The UAE-based Key2enable Assistive Technology, which empowers children with disabilities using a group of assistive technology, was awarded in best growth category.
Key2enable designs tools that accelerate users’ communication and learning process and help them to become self-sufficient.
“Our revenue originates from direct selling plus monthly subscription plans,” said Jose Rubinger Filho, company’s founder.
“First, we understand their [users] needs … then, we indicate the very best one [solution] in a subscription-based plan.”
Other winners of the category prizes are the US-based health and wellness companies Rubitection (best early stage) and Vuetech Health Innovations (best idea), and Saudi Arabia-based education technology start-up BrightSign (best social).
Source: www.thenationalnews.com
