The Global Startup Pitch People’s Choice Awards were announced on October 8 at WiT Singapore: The Next 20, celebrating the most innovative Seedup and Scaleup startups from around the world, as voted by the audience.
The awards spotlighted two rising stars of travel and technology—Replyr.ai in the Seedup category and PassiveBolt in the Scaleup category.
Competing at WiT Singapore for the People’s Choice awards were the winners who had been chosen at the Grand Finals at Phocuswright Europe in June. They included ImpersonAlly, Kijani Supplies, Levee and Replyr.ai in the Seedup Category and Buzz, Loyalty Status Co., Me Protocol and PassiveBolt in the Scaleup Category.
The Global Startup Pitch competition, organized by WiT, Phocuswright and PhocusWire, is in its fourth year. The Global Startup Pitch Competition is supported by American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT), a Phocuswright Strategic Partner of Innovation. The competition brings together some of the most promising early and growth-stage startups in travel and travel technology to compete in four regions—North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East Africa—in two categories, Seedup and Scaleup.
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Replyr.ai, represented by founder and CEO Dylan Tan, captured the Seedup People’s Choice Award. PassiveBolt, led by CEO Kabir Maiga, secured the Scaleup People’s Choice Award.
Both winners will now have the opportunity to showcase their innovations on a global stage at The Phocuswright Conference in San Diego, November 18-20, where they will join a community of influential leaders shaping the future of travel.
“Winning the People’s Choice Award at Web In Travel’s Global Startup Pitch is a big validation for us,” Replyr.ai's Tan said. “Travel chatbots are broken—they’re not on WhatsApp, can’t integrate to hotel tools and can’t do stuff for guests. I’m excited for our WhatsApp AI agents to serve more properties, helping them drive incremental booking & ancillary revenue.”
“To be chosen by the WiT and Phocuswright community is an incredible honor,” said PassiveBolt's Maiga. “This award is a clear mandate that solving the friction of the guest journey is the industry’s most pressing challenge, and we’re thrilled that our vision of using a person’s verified identity to create a truly seamless hotel access experience resonated so strongly,” he added.
“As a hotelier, I can see all the products presented this year helping with tough challenges facing hotels in innovative ways. Hats off to all the teams for their innovations and hard work getting to this point. They all have bright futures ahead of them, and of course congratulations to Replyr,” said Morris Sim, executive director, Montara Hospitality.
“Kabir from Passive Bolt presented a clear vision for combining digital identity wallets in a software/hardware solution to enable frictionless access to our physical spaces. The application could be endless,” said Susli Lie, partner at Monk’s Hill Ventures.
Both Morris and Susli were on the panel of “dragons” for this year’s Global Startup Pitch Showcase.
Yeoh Siew Hoon, founder of WiT, said: “Congratulations to the two People’s Choice winners for making it to the next stage. We designed the competition in such a way so that participating startups have the opportunity to showcase their business to different audiences around the world, from Europe to Asia Pacific to North America. This is the only truly Global Startup Pitch that bridges the world of travel tech startups.”
Pete Comeau, managing director of Phocuswright, added: “Startups are the lifeblood of innovation in travel, and the Global Startup Pitch shines a spotlight on the visionaries who are shaping the future of our industry. The People’s Choice Awards are especially meaningful because they represent the voice of the audience, a testament to the relevance and impact of these startups’ ideas. We are thrilled to celebrate this year’s winners and look forward to seeing them on stage at The Phocuswright Conference in San Diego.”
The Global Startup Pitch is part of Northstar Travel Tech Group’s ongoing commitment to cultivating innovation including WiT Bootcamps, the Phocuswright Startup Program, PhocusWire’s Hot 25 Travel Startups, Launch and an industry-driving global network of leaders on the cutting edge of innovation.
This story originally appeared in WiT.