Silk Road Startup’s 2018 Road Trip took place from October 13th to 22nd. After a series of pitch competitions around 5 cities of Iran, 8 startups have been selected to pitch for the final event and also a 100-day online acceleration program called Silkroad 100.
This year Silk Road Startup’s Road Trip events were held in the cities of Kerman, Shiraz, Mashhad, Tabriz and Tehran. Overall the events attracted +1400 attendees from all around the country.
The last city of this road trip was Tehran, in which 19 startups pitched in front of the 6 jury members during 2 days.
During this two-day event, aside from the pitches, a number of keynotes and also various panels by Iran’s startup ecosystem active members were held.
During the first day, two panels were held on the subjects of “Female Entrepreneurs” and “Bootstrapping”. During the first panel, with the presence of Nikoo Niknam, Founder of NikPrint, Moojan Asghari, Co-founder of Silk Road Startup, Lena Vafaey, Founder of Peeyade, Nazanin Daneshvar, Founder of Takhfifan and Tabassom Latifi, Founder of Maman Paz, the panelists talked about the challenges which the female entrepreneurs in Iran are facing and what should be done in opposition to those challenges.
During the bootstrapping panel, Hamidreza Ahmadi, CEO of Evand, Mostafa Amiri, CEO of Zarin Pal, Farhad Hedayati Fard, CEO of Taskulu and Hadi Farnood, Co-founder of Silk Road Startup, talked about the goods and odds of bootstrapping methods for startups. The panelists talked about their own experiences of bootstrapping and also gave some advice to startups in order to raise investments in the right time.
The keynotes during the first day were presented by Radman Rabii, Partner at Turquoise Partners, and David Braun, a serial entrepreneur. Rabii talked about raising funds in critical situations and David Braun talked about living a planned life and overcoming the challenges that an entrepreneur might face.
The startups which pitched during the first day of Tehran’s event are the following:
Arthibiton: Simply buy, sell and browse original arts in painting, calligraphy painting and sculpture from Iran and the Middle East on Artibition’s online marketplace.
Diaalog: An intelligent virtual agent which impersonates a member of the customer support team in companies and answers customers’ repetitive and/or typical questions.
3SootJobs: A job search platform that allows candidates and employers to contact each other directly and even have online interviews.
Musera: Musera is a music app that you can use to identify all your songs.
IranbyBit: A travel service provider, offering a wide range of budget services for solo travelers, adventurers, backpackers and all kinds of travelers to Iran who seek the wonderful local experiences.
TripeMa: A travel marketplace in Iran.
Problem.ir: An open innovation platform which helps businesses find & solve their problems.
Logiico: A tool to manage the out of the organization activities. It is a logistics management system with many advantages.
Corridorz: International rail transport platform. Corridorz calculates the costs and transit time, finds the transportation companies, manages documents and has an online tracking ability.
Other startups which pitched during the second day of the event in Tehran are the following.
AloPark: Find parking spots in seconds, wherever and whenever you need it.
NEXO: An online urban service provider.
DongiPal: A multi-purpose messaging and payment app.
Khooger Plus: The first B2B platform for furniture industry suppliers.
100Tahlil: A system for ranking the technical and fundamental analysts of the stock exchange.
InPin: A platform which connects home seekers with local professionals to ease the process of buying, selling, or renting a property. Also, the home seekers can submit their “property request” on the platform and receive the “matched” properties/agents in the app.
Bimic: A smart business insurance system in Iran.
Cashineh: A platform that promotes a new method of selling advertising in the area of purchasing, which on one hand, is profitable for the owners of the goods and services, and on the other hand, is economical for customers and buyers.
Speed: A system for distributing your items.
Smart Wifi: An integrated smart system based on cloud computing which works due to the situation of the route and is responsible for internet sharing management, and the methods of the user’s activity.
On the second day of the event, two panels and one keynote were also held. The first panel was the accelerators panel in which Ahmadreza Masrour, CEO of DMOND, Ariyan Afshar, Managing Director of Finnova, Rouhollah Rahmani, VP of Innovation at Digikala and Mohammadreza Azali, Co-founder of Silk Road Startup talked about the current situation of the Iranian accelerators and startups. The challenges of managing an accelerator in Iran were also discussed in this panel and the CEOs of these three accelerators talked about their process of accepting startups in their programs, and the shares which they take.
The last panel of the event was held with the topic of tourism by Akbar Hashemi, Editor In Chief at Shanbe Magazine, and the panelists included were Amirali Mohajer, COO of Snapptrip, Kamran Khoshi, Co-founder of Zoraq, Ata Khalighi, Co-founder of Otaghak and Nima Ghazi, Co-founder of Alibaba Travels.
Before announcing the winners, Alireza Aghasi, CMO of Aban Solutions, talked about the differences between the Chinese startup ecosystem and Silicon Valley. He explained how Chinese startups succeed in scaling and have reached their own level of creativity and innovation in recent years.
After the last keynote, 4 startups were announced as the top selected teams of Tehran’s Silk Road Startup’s Road Trip in 2018. The selected teams in Tehran were Corridorz, Diaalog, 3SootJobs, and Inpin.
The four other events in the cities of Kerman, Shiraz, Mashhad, and Tabriz were also a success and attracted many tech enthusiasts from all around the country.
The winners of each city are the following:
Kerman: Paziresh 24 – A platform for finding and making doctor appointments, comparing the quality and cost of treatment.
Shiraz: Alefba – An app for creating tutorials on textbooks and booklets.
Mashhad: Fanasa – A smart rehabilitation gadget.
Tabriz: Honily – An online platform to buy and sell natural honey.
The top startups from each city will be invited for the 2019 summit. Silk Road Startup’s Summit aims to gather the best startups from around the country in one place next to European leaders for a two-day conference. The Summit is scheduled for the first quarter of 2019.
For more information about Silk Road Startup and the following events visit https://silkroadstartup.org/
The post Silk Road Startup Announces Iran’s 2018 Top 8 Startups appeared first on TechRasa.
Comments