PowerPT brought together startups from Korea and abroad for an innovative pitch tournament called Podium Star Pitch Tournament. The tournament started with 16 startups which were then narrowed down to 8 teams. These 8 teams pitched online at the Podium Star Pitch Tournament 4.0 with a 1-minute elevator pitch. Voting was then turned over to the audience who further narrowed the field down to 4 teams. Furthermore, these 4 teams did their 5-minute investor pitch in front of investors who ultimately selected the winning startup Teknobuilt.
Podium Star Pitch Tournament
The Podium Star Pitch Tournament brought in the highest turnout for any Podium Star event with over 300 attendees from 35 countries for the online event. The theme for this event focused on Industry 4.0. What exactly is Industry 4.0? It’s all about applying digital technology, such as AI, to traditional systems to automate, optimize and create new ways of production. Therefore, solutions for smart factories, smart cities, robotics, IoT, and even the Metaverse all fall into the category of Industry 4.0.
Podium Star provided all 16 startups with support via pitch coaching and deck design. PowerPT has a design team of 15 designers and every startup got a designer who was in charge of recreating the pitch deck. In addition, PowerPT created a 60-second intro video for each speaker which was played at the event.
8 Startups Compete for 4 Spots
The pitch tournament started off with 8 startups giving their 1-minute elevator pitch.
- Joseph Hill – CEO at Zephframe
- Esteban Tapia – Product IC at Shush.ai
- Sean Lee – CEO at Tiny Wave
- Charles Kiseok Song – Co-CEO at Gentle Energy
- Chea Srun – CEO at XQuant
- Philip Man – CEO at Port
- Abhishek Srivastava – Managing Director & Co-Founder at Teknobuilt
- Kevin Paek – CEO at WeRide
The audience then voted on their favorite with Teknobuilt, Gentle Energy, Zephframe, and Port receiving the most votes and moving on to the final 4. The top 4 startups gave a 5-minute investor pitch to 15 investors brought in by Podium Star. In the end, the investors voted and gave the win to Teknobuilt.
Teknobuilt is a platform that connects the entire process of construction using AI in order to boosts productivity. As the winner of the Podium Star Pitch Tournament, they won a $15,000 scholarship to join Draper University’s 5-week entrepreneurship program in Silicon Valley called Hero Training.
Watch the Podium Star Pitch Tournament – Industry 4.0 below.
Join the Next Podium Star
Podium Star is constantly on the lookout for startups with scalable solutions. Therefore, those interested in applying for the next Podium Star event simply fill out an online application through their site. While they focus mainly on Korean startups, global startups that have registered in South Korea can also apply.
Podium Star has now helped over 100 startups in Korea fine-tune their pitch through professional coaching. In addition, Podium Star holds events throughout the year under different themes to give every startup a chance to participate. Therefore, startups looking to join top accelerators, get funded, increase their revenue, improve their pitch, gain users/customers, and get global exposure should join the next Podium Star event!
