Echelon Asia Summit 2023 has just concluded last June 15, and we are delighted to share the key highlights of the two-day conference that took place at the Singapore EXPO. Having gathered startup founders, corporates, investors, and other ecosystem stakeholders from across the Asia Pacific, Echelon 2023 was attended by over 5000 participants, with over 130 booths and exhibitors from different startups, VCs, and enterprises, and over 30 sessions consisting of keynote speeches, fireside chats, panel discussions, and pitching competitions that featured some of the most sought after industry insiders, all spanning three major stages: the TOP100 stage, the Forge stage, and the Forward stage.
Since its inception, the Echelon Asia Summit has facilitated thousands of connections between startup founders, VCs, corporates, and other stakeholders, and has played an important part in building many important partnerships and collaborations over the years.
Also read: These 11 AI companies caught our eyes at Echelon Asia Summit 2023
“It has been humbling to see the resilience and grit of the various stakeholders in the Southeast tech ecosystem and them coming together towards building a better ecosystem. In partnership with the ecosystem, Echelon will collectively drive to support and engage stakeholders towards striving for sustainable growth. We are grateful for the support of the community in making Echelon a success in 2023 and look forward to doubling the scale in 2024,” explained Mohan Belani, Co-Founder and CEO of e27.
This year’s Echelon Asia Summit marks the full comeback of the anticipated Southeast Asian tech conference, having been put on hold in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, returning on a smaller scale in 2022 in partnership with SWITCH.
This year, the Asia Pacific tech startup ecosystem truly came together to help bolster and enable the region’s vibrant business landscape for all stakeholders to thrive in, fostering impactful connections, networking, partnerships, and collaborations — proving that the region’s tech startup community is back in full speed.
Longan Group hailed as the winner of TOP100
After hundreds of applications, pitches, and a rigorous judging process, debt management company Longan Group emerged as the winner of the prestigious TOP100 program. The TOP100 grand finals was one of the biggest highlights of Day 2, featuring pitches from a diverse range of startups operating across different verticals and domains, including fintech, agritech, healthtech, and more.
Longan is an ethical and inclusive debt management company supporting consumers and financial institutions to manage their finances more efficiently, on a mission to solve consumer indebtedness and promote financial health among the two billion population across Asia. The company is currently operating in Indonesia and Vietnam.
This year’s TOP100 grand finals was adjudged by our esteemed panel of investor-judges, including Weisheng Neo, General Partner at Qualgro Partner; Susli Lie, Partner at Monk’s Hill Ventures; Martin Cu, Partner at 500 Global; Tanuja Rajah, Partner at M Venture Partners, and Johan Surani, Vice President, Peak XV Partners.
Forge Stage sparks important conversations
The Forge Stage featured key insights from industry leaders and insiders concerning some of today’s most pressing topics.
The sessions held at the Forge stage spanned a diverse range of subjects, including a panel discussion on the topic, “Building a Sustainable Fintech Ecosystem: Unlocking the Potential of Southeast Asia and Predicting the Future Unicorns”, moderated by Sandeep Laxman, Head of Fintech Business Development, APJ, at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and featuring Nikhilesh Goel, Co-Founder & Group CEO of Validus as the speaker; a fireside chat on “How generative AI can help uncover profitable areas in your business”, moderated by Hung Nguyen, Head of Consulting at e27, and featuring Jinu VM, Sales Engineering Lead at Sendbird as its speaker; and and a fireside chat on the topic, “How Can Women Play an Increasing Role in Tech and is it Time for Southeast Asia to Have More Gender-Neutral Collaborative Organizations”, with Devina Mardiputri, Senior Account Executive for APAC at e27 as moderator and Chrisanti Indiana, Co-Founder and CMO of Sociolla as the speaker.
Also read: Longan Group named as winner of 2023 TOP100
One of the key highlights from the Forge stage was the fireside chat entitled, “What does it take to build an ideal growth equity platform for Southeast Asia?” where Saemin Ahn and Martin Cu, Partners at 500 Global discussed key trends and insights as well as strategies to take on growth equity funding in the region. The session was moderated by Mohan Belani, Co-Founder and CEO of e27.
Trends and key insights at the Forward Stage
Similarly, the Forward Stage became the site of important discussions on trends and key insights as shared by a variety of experts and industry insiders.
These discussions included a keynote on the topic, “The Philippine Opportunity: Mass Digitization of a Population” featuring Franco Varona, Managing Partner for Foxmont Capital Partners; a fireside chat on “Breaking Boundaries, Bridging Korean startup ecosystem to Southeast Asia through an integrated approach” with Jinkyo (Jade) Choi, Director of Startup Ecosystem Development at the Next Challenge Foundation as the speaker and Justin Chin, Head of Business Development at e27 as the moderator; and a panel discussion on “The upcoming rise of the Philippines startup ecosystem, and what founders and investors should take note of”, with John Aguilar, Founder and Host of The Final Pitch, Glenn Estrella, Head of Ideation and Acceleration Group for 917Ventures, Rexy Josh Dorado, Co-Founder and President of Kumu, and Franco Varona, Managing Partner at Foxmont Capital Partners.
Culminating the stage on day 2 was a fireside chat on “Breaking Down Borders: How YC Alum, Dropee, is redefining the SEA supply chain”, with Lennise Ng, CEO and Co-Founder of Dropee serving as our esteemed speaker, joined by Lalitha Wemel, CEO and Co-Founder for Opt-In Studio as the moderator.
Other highlights from Echelon Asia Summit 2023
Prudence Foundation’s SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards 2023 also culminated at the year’s Echelon Asia Summit, with all six finalists battling it out for the top spot. Emerging as the winner is Wateroam, a social enterprise which provides honest water solutions for a better world. Their vision to end global thirst is being accomplished by producing efficient and affordable water treatment products that are used for emergency relief and rural development. Specifically, their solution is The ROAMfilter Plus 2, a community water filtration system that is simple to operate, long-lasting, lightweight and cost-effective. The system’s hand pump operation requires no electricity, making it an ideal and immediate solution for rural and disaster-hit regions. With the ROAMfilter Plus 2, a person becomes a mobile water station which can produce safe drinking water quickly for 100 people.
Also read: Collaboration with corporates plays a crucial role in climate tech startups’ success
Over at the e27 Ecosystem Booth, apart from being an open networking space that enabled ecosystem stakeholders to meet, chat, and network with their peers, we also saw a series of workshops and sessions including, “e27 Contributor Program Workshop: How to become a thought leader in the startup ecosystem”, featuring Anisa Menur of e27 and Cheryl Liew of Monk’s Hill Ventures; “Building your Investor Network: Strategies for Nurturing VC-Startups Relationships and Effective Fundraising”, with Paulo Oscuro of e27, featuring Sejung Yun of ColoplNext and Davin Dedhia of Auptimate; and “Innovating on the Acceleration Model with Communities, Meet the Leaders and Hear their Impact Stories”, with Jieyu Chan of Work on Climate and featuring Melvin Chew, Founder of Hawkwers United Dabao 2020, Johnson Lam, Founder of KakiRepair, Myles Delfin, Founder of The Bike Scout Project, and Rauf Raphanus, Founder of Peri Kertas.
Overall, the Echelon Asia Summit 2023 was a huge success and we have the APAC tech startup ecosystem to thank! We hope that the connections built over the 2-day conference will yield a lasting impact that will help define the business landscape of the region and beyond.
We can’t wait to see what’s next in store for all of you. See you at the Echelon Asia Summit 2024!
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Echelon Asia Summit is e27’s flagship tech conference, bringing APAC’s startup ecosystem together to build connections, gain insights, and meet talent from all over Asia. Explore how startups, investors, corporates and government bodies work together across borders to tackle similar challenges and pressing issues and empower the larger ecosystem to build the Future of Asia. Gather meaningful insights from industry leaders and stakeholders through stage discussions; build connections within the industry with over 300 exhibition booths. As Asia’s leading platform for tech startups and investments for 13 years now, Echelon Asia Summit will take on cross-border engagements, talent growth, and showcasing APAC’s emerging and leading companies from the heart of Singapore.
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