>>> Finalists for Mekong Sub-region’s agricultural startup contest announced
The Vietnamese startup team shared the first prize with their Australian colleagues – the AgUnity team – a blockchain platform that helps farmers to share resources.
Meanwhile, KIU Global (regional in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam) – a financial technology solution offering agricultural businesses access to credit, and Verifik8 (Thailand) – software that helps improve performance in the agrifood supply chain, won the second prize.
Third prize went to TunYat (Myanmar) – a rental solution that gives smallholder farmers access to larger machinery and Enzootic, Ltd. (Israel and China’s Hong Kong) – a cell transplantation technology for shrimp farming that yields all female shrimp, producing more product with less loss.
Prizes ranged from the equivalent of US$2,000-5,000. The winners also presented outstanding technology solutions with high potential to advance agriculture in the Greater Mekong Sub-region.
The winners also received ongoing mentorship and training and will compete in the Singapore-based Future Food Asia Award Competition, aimed at accelerating open innovation in AgriTech and FoodTech across Asia Pacific in order to catalyse and align an ecosystem to cope with the challenges of food.
Earlier, 22 teams visited Hanoi to pitch their technologies and solutions to a panel of industry experts and investors. The teams hailed from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, as well as Australia, China, India, Israel, the Netherlands, and Thailand. They also participated in business matching, one-on-one meetings with mentors, and farm tours.
The Mekong Business Initiative, Future Food Asia, and the GMS Core Agriculture Support Programme co-organised MATCh with funding and support from the Australian Government and the Asian Development Bank.
MATCh supports startups in agriculture to develop products, network and learn from industry players, showcase their solutions, and access markets and funding. It is aimed at agritech and traditional agricultural businesses with innovative and scalable solutions for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
