Fresh2ket, Impok, Paspas Declared Winners in First Philippine Alpha Startup Bootcamp

Startups Fresh2ket, Impok, and Paspas emerged victorious following the first Alpha Startup Bootcamp in the Philippines organized by the DOST – ICT Office with partners Techtalks.ph and 1337 Ventures.

A total of 28 startups underwent the five-day pre-accelerator bootcamp held last November 9-13, 2015 at Cebu City. The bootcamp featured intensive workshops on product development, customer development, marketing, and such other business aspects necessary to help them advance from idea generation to customer profiling and acquisition, developing viable products and business models. A demo day was held on the 13th to culminate the event.

“While we have held many startup events in the past, this is the most intensive yet. Many early stage startups struggle with getting off the ground, so our partners from 1337 Ventures who facilitated it designed the bootcamp to walk them through the fundamentals of building digital businesses,” said Monchito Ibrahim, Deputy Executive Director of the DOST – ICT Office. “This is a step forward for our local startup ecosystem development and we look to continue with this program in the years to come,” he added.

Of the 28 participating teams, 11 made it to the finals and pitched their ideas again to the jury: School Merch, Guia, PageBoy, FilantroPH, TeeVee, PasPas, RET.asia, Paraiso PH, Fresh2ket, Nambal, and Impok.

From these 11 startups, three were declared winners: Fresh2ket, a web platform that directly links farmers to consumers and businesses, Paspas, a last mile SMS-based concierge service, and Impok, a savings and micro-financing platform for schools.

Each of them received initial funding amounting to $1000, and $5,000 worth of Amazon Web Services and mentorship from 1337 Ventures.

The Alpha Startup Bootcamp is part of the DOST-ICTO’s larger initiative of promoting technopreneurship and innovation in the country through its seedPH program. Towards this, seedPH leverages the use of ICT for relevant economic and social change through the development of the Philippine startup ecosystem.

Source: icto.dost.gov.ph