UK-based consumer products conglomerate Unilever yesterday revealed the 30 startups that will participate in the Southeast Asia edition of its Unilever Foundry hub in 2017.
The scheme, Unilever Foundry 30 Southeast Asia and Australasia (SEAA), aims to develop businesses capable of impacting the technological, consumer and social ecosystems in the region.
The initiative focuses on five categories: retail; media and advertising; brand and content innovation; data, insights and personalisation; and sustainability and social impact.
Participants will have the opportunity to work on business ideas alongside Unilever’s consumer brands and will get co-working space in the Level3 hub at Unilever’s Singapore office.
The participants include BillionBricks, Emporio Analytics, Fomo Pay, Happi, Jumper.ai, Kobe Global Technologies, Narratrs, Shopback Singapore, Silot, Sticheo, TaskSpotting, Try and Review, UShift, Vaniday Singapore, Viddsee, ViSenze and Wootag from Singapore.
The Singapore-based startups will be joined by DÄV – Digital Avatar, GetCraft and Taptopick (Indonesia), Stackla, Shippit and Genero (Australia), Crazy S.O.B (Israel), Zap (The Philippines), Neuro Flash (Germany), Moving Walls (Malaysia), LoopMe (UK), Picasso Labs (US) and Popxo (India).
Unilever has previously run three-month editions of the Foundry in the US, UK, Singapore and India that had graduated 75 startups between them as of October 2015.
Barbara Guerpillon, head of Unilever Foundry SEAA and Level3, said: “The Unilever Foundry 30 embodies Unilever’s commitment to Southeast Asia and Australasia and to working with startup talent who we believe will have a significant impact on the region.”