Asia Business Conference - Startup Showcase
Creator IPOs, sustainable hats, agriculture innovation, Cosplay, and more!
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This year's MIT Sloan Asia Business Conference focused on pivotal issues and opportunities shaping Asia and our world. One of the most dynamic business regions in the world, Asia is uniquely positioned to be a leader and partner across a number of growing industries. This makes it both exciting and important to understand the technological advances being driven in this region.
The theme for this year's conference was Globalization 2.0. COVID-19 and geopolitical competition have changed the pace of globalization, making it important for us to consider how these shifts are impacting one of the largest business regions in the world. The panels at this year's event reflected some of the pressing facets of globalization, including venture capital and entrepreneurship, emerging technologies in Asia, digital platform innovations, supply chain and logistics, and sustainability and decarbonization.
I really enjoyed hearing from the six startups that pitched at this year's virtual conference. Below are six startups that are on a mission to make an impact.
Moss
Moss helps smaller content creators grow a loyal fan base while allowing these fans to share in the upside of the creator’s success. Micro creators (creators with 5-100k followers) are in demand, but need capital investment to commit to content creation full time and grow their fan base. Additionally, many fans want to go beyond passive viewership and be actively invested in their favorite creator's success. Unfortunately, the platforms that connect creators and fans are built for 'super influencers' and do not make it easy for micro creators to foster deep relationships with fans.
Moss is an outlet and marketplace for content creators to provide NFT-based offerings that combine real world benefits and unique digital art to their supporters. The team described this solution as a 'Creator IPO.' Creators raise capital from fans to grow their business, and in turn return dynamic NFTs to their fans. Dynamic NFTs reward fans based on the number of NFT shares they own, the real life success of the creator, and the level of engagement of the fan across social platforms.
This solution allows the real world success of creators and celebrities to be tied back to their fans. According to the Moss team, the creator economy is $104B global market and growing. Notably, 63% of fans have paid on average $430 per year to support their favorite creators. Unlike platforms like Patreon, Moss allows fans to earn upside in the success of their favorite creators. But most importantly, it offers proof of support for fans that helped generate buzz early on for these creators.
RAB Lab
RAB Lab has created a faster, cheaper, and more sustainable way to build residential prefab housing units.
Due to labor shortages and rising construction costs a large number of projects are not being completed on time, leading to expensive and unforeseen extra costs for developers. As such, developers are seeking more automated and efficient construction solutions to keep costs low.
To solve these problems, RAB Lab has designed an entirely new pre fab process that includes a number of tech innovations with their own unique IP. First, their computational design system efficiently reads customer supply requirements, automatically generates output, and converts these into 3D print ready structures for product manufacturing. Next, they have created their own 3D printed manufacturing system to allow for standardized mass production using robotic arms. Once the prefab units are delivered to the construction site, the RAB Lab AR Assembly system provides on site guidance that assists with the assembly steps and quality inspection.
Compared to a traditional prefab unit, the RAB Lab solution reduces construction time by 35% and further reduces costs by releasing 30% in factory labor. Not only that, but the RAB Lab solution is also sustainable with a 25% smaller Carbon footprint.
Rab Lab is currently working on their MVP which they plan to release later this year, and plan to launch the 3D printed Prefab product in 2023.
Coscove
Coscove is building the largest peer-to-peer costume marketplace to help cosplayers and hobbyists express their identities through costume.
Cosplay is the act of dressing up as your favorite characters and bringing them to real life. If you live in a big city and have seen large cosplay conventions, you know how big of a market this and how passionate cosplayers are about their wardrobes. According to Coscove, the market for cosplay alone is around $7.1B while adjacent markets like renaissance fairs and Halloween are $2B and $8.7B respectively.
The Coscove marketplace will allow customers to not only browse listings of used costumes, but also find and commission custom makers to create new outfits. The platform will also serve as a a forum that allows cosplayers to connect with one another and build community. The initial business model is to charge a 10% commission on all transactions, with potential for other monetization opportunities in the future.
Topiku
Topiku is creating the world’s most sustainable hats. Topiku is a social enterprise that works with Indonesian artisans to create premium headwear that is responsibly made from upcycled and recycled materials.
Waste management is a huge problem in Indonesia. Indonesia is the world’s second largest ocean polluter and the capital of Jakarta produces a staggering 7000 tons (28.5% plastic) of waste each day. Of the collected trash, only a rate of 7.5% (2% in rural regions) gets recycled. Sadly, Indonesia does not currently have the proper resources to tackle this growing waste epidemic.
Topiku founder Monty Hasan grew up between California and Indonesia, and had trouble reconciling why there were such disparities between the waste management systems of his two homes. So after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016, he set out on a mission to build scalable solutions to solve the problem.
Topiku’s responsible supply chain below serves as their competitive advantage.
The results are clear. In 2021 Topiku released their official carbon footprint report showing that the company purchased 7x the amount of offsets than the company emitted. Through their certification with climate Neutral, Topiku is officially Carbon Negative. Even more, Topiku has more than doubled their revenue each year since 2019. They’ve recently expanded their B2B sales channel to offer custom headwear, which now makes up over 95% of their annual sales. And in addition to all the amazing work they’re doing for the planet and community, the hats are pretty cool too:
Qarbotech
Qarbotech is enhancing photosynthesis. Qarbotech’s patent pending nanotech product, Harvast, is the first photosynthesis enhancer in the market.
Photosynthesis is an inefficient process. No matter how much input is provided only about 2-4% of sunlight is converted into chemical energy through photosynthesis. Harvast however is able to penetrate leaves, interact with chloroplasts, and assist in the electron transfer process to enhance photosynthesis.
Harvast is able to enhance the photosynthesis rate of plants by 30% which translates to 30% increase in plant growth, 25% reduction in crop cycle, and 20% increase in the sweetness of fruits. What’s even more exciting is that Harvast is produced with bio char, a biproduct from the palm oil industry. By upcycling biochar to produce Harvast, Qarbotech is reducing the use of chemical fertilizer and energy consumption.
Harvast has been tested with more than 350 gardeners and farmers, and is applied easily by spraying the product onto the plant leaves. Qarbotech estimates that the market size for the indoor farming market is over $15B.
Growr
Growr is saving crops and saving livelihoods.
Each year, ~20% of global crop production is lost due to infestation and disease. This translates to approximately $290B in loss to the global economy. Meanwhile, Growr expects a 59% increase in the demand for food by 2050.
To combat infestation and disease, farmers need access to both information and intervention. Growr is building an AI based image to cognition model that diagnoses crop health using images farmers submit using their cell phone cameras. This will be significantly faster and cheaper than traditional models farmers use to test crops and predict disease.
Growr plans to sell B2B, initially to global trade houses and food processors who have a vested interest in the success of their supply chain. Their beachhead market is plantation crops, which they estimate is a $40B market.
I hope you enjoyed reading about each of these startups! If you want more of these recaps directly to your inbox, subscribe below. This Thursday is the MIT $100k Accelerate competition, one of the largest pitch competitions of the year. Look out for that recap email later this week!