Money changes everything

IdeaSpace names new startups qualified to join the 2016 acceleration phase. (From left) Andrew Cua (Tralulu), Rio Ilao (Tarkie), Ruel Amparo (Cropital), Oshie King (Cleaning Lady) and JC Bisnar (Investagrams), with Diane Eustaquio, IdeaSpace executive director.

IdeaSpace Foundation, the leading incubator for startups in the country, has chosen 10 promising enterprises seen to make a dent in the country’s economy.

These startups, which include a mobile app that lets users tap a “Cleaning Lady,” will each receive a P500,000 equity-free funding on top of noncash benefits and mentorship from executives of companies under First Pacific group including PLDT, Smart Communications and Manila Electric Corp.

IdeaSpace now has a total of 48 startups in its portfolio, including Sustainable Alternative Lighting (SALt) that sells lamps powered by a saline solution. Filipina engineer and Greenpeace member Aisa Mijeno, the inventor of the SALt lamp, gained attention after appearing with US President Barack Obama and Alibaba chair Jack Ma during a talk on entrepreneurship at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit late last year.

Following its decision to change its funding strategy, IdeaSpace was able to attract a more diverse batch this year. These startups differ in backgrounds and business preparedness.

“We’ve attracted really high value startups this year, some of which have operational products and business models. This helps fulfill our role in enabling early-stage startup ideas and feeding them to the ecosystem later on, where they can get more funding,” says Diane Eustaquio, IdeaSpace executive director.

By not taking equity from startups, IdeaSpace lets founders take full ownership of their businesses thus pushing them to make their ideas become commercially viable. IdeaSpace expects these startups to have polished their ideas by December this year.

Hopefuls

Startup Cropital was born with the goal of supporting about 11 million farmers without access to funding.

The brainchild of engineers from UP Diliman, Cropital matches investors to deserving farmers. The farmer would be provided with capital and training resources.

“Cropital aims to empower farmers, improve their productivity and ultimately increase their household income,” says Ruel Amparo, chief executive and co-founder of Cropital.

Since launching the startup in November last year, Cropital has already raised over $60,000, financing over 40 farmers from four provinces. The startup also had the record of raising $30,000 in a day.

For people wanting to earn money through stocks, a team of full-time traders and licensed stock brokers came up with a website and app providing analytical tools to investors.

JC Bisnar and his team decided to establish the startup because they realized there was an absence of a go-to website for those who want to learn the ropes of stock market investing.

Claiming itself as the fastest-growing stock market website and app in the country, Investagrams is already approaching two million views a month. Investagrams offers articles, tutorials, news analytics and tools to help people screen and monitor stocks.

“After dominating the Philippines, what we want to do is take the world by storm, we want to go out there because we believe in our skills set, in our technology. We believe that a Filipino startup could lead in the fintech (financial technology) category,” says Bisnar.

Tarkie, meanwhile, is an online and offline app for tracking field employees and their productivity.

Having been in operation for two years, Tarkie is already used by over a thousand employees nationwide, including those from Chooks to Go and Doktors Generics Pharmacy Inc., the largest operator of The Generics Pharmacy.

Challenged by the demand to efficiently monitor field employees of their Ink-All-You-Can business, Rio Ilao and her team built the Tarkie app. It records employee locations and their activities (such as deliveries, client meetings, etc.) via GPS.

“It’s a tool for both company and employee. It provides the necessary visibility for the company at the same time makes work easier for the employees,” says Ilao, chief executive of Tarkie.

Employing women

With a dream of becoming the “Uber” of cleaning services, startup Cleaning Lady is currently focusing on building a strong market base in Metro Manila.

Employing women from organized communities like Gawad Kalinga, Cleaning Lady provides quality and delicate cleaning and other special services such as laundry, ironing and pet care, among others, to clients. The women are trained and certified by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

Charges for the services depend on the number of hours rendered (P350 for one hour, P500 for one and a half, and P625 for two hours).

The cleaning ladies get a share of the company’s revenues—30 percent on top of a P3,000 monthly allowance.

To help address the transportation needs of the cleaning ladies, ride-sharing service firm Grab has recently offered Cleaning Lady a partnership deal.

“We are [also] trying to improve our booking system, working on improving our website and at the same time we are trying to come up with a dashboard to automate the processes that we have in place to really make our operations and logistics automated,” says Oshie King, co-founder of Cleaning Lady.

Meanwhile, traveling like a local to any domestic or Southeast Asian destination is every traveler’s dream. This will be possible starting August through Tralulu, the largest digital platform in the country connecting travelers to around 40 local tourist guides in each of the seven Southeast Asian countries.

After selecting a guide, users will be provided with a customized travel itinerary.

As travelers themselves, Andrew Cua and his team members can relate to common problems when traveling like language barrier, security issue and navigation. Cua, founder and CEO of Tralulu, says he experienced all these when he was a travel guide for two years.

The other IdeaSpace winning startups this year are Populi (analytics platform for politicians to visualize public pulse in real time), InvestED (microfinancing platform for student loans), Banyera (online marketplace for wholesale farmed fish products), Taxumo (mobile and web app helping people with their taxes) and E.A.R.S (a startup that makes a wearable early warning, detection and reaction device for the deaf/hearing impaired).