OneChat wins at SPARK 2

Three startups, all embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud technology for their applications, were announced the winners at SPARK 2 on July 26, 2018.

SPARK Accelerator is a collaborative global acceleration program of National Innovation Agency (NIA) and Israel’s AGE Group to supporting Thai startups with growth potential to become more competitive in global market.

Eleven startups presented their business plans on Demo Day to the committee, led by Vichian Suksoi of NIA, AGW chairman & CEO Eitan Lavie, Thai FinTech Association chairman Korn Chatikavanij, Cocoon Capital investment partner Monthida McCoole, Nichapat Ark of NSI, Infinity Technologies chief global strategy Barak Sharabi, Shannon Kalayanamitr of Gobi Partners, Juthasree Kulvinichkul of Metta Group

OneChat, The winning team, is a chatbot creation platform that supports message through Facebook business pages and merely serves as a platform for conducting chats via Facebook. The purpose of OneChat is to convert Facebook chats into sales, helping those who utilize Facebook for business purposes chat with customers and conduct sales more efficiently. Target group of OneChat is those 2.5 million users in Facebook social commerce.

OneChat team will join DLD Tel Aviv 2018, visiting, creating business network and meeting media and investors in Tel Aviv, one of the most important annual events for startups.

Foodie, the 1st runner-up, is a food ordering management platform for restaurants, connecting data of food orders from multi channels.

CloudCommerce, the 2nd runner-up, is a cross-border e-commerce and logistics platform enabling online shops to select international couriers fit to their destinations.

PRIMO, a personal advisor for using privilege point card, was announced the popular vote.

Other seven teams are: on-demand part-time management Cap Rangers, AI analysis for energy saving in buildings ENRES, cloud-based platform for organizers Happenn, medical equipment for improving lives of disabled pets iVet, dating app Kooup, cloud-based patient record MEiD, and keyboard mobile app Pastel Keyboard.

Dr. Pun-Arj Chairatana, NIA executive director, discloses that startups at SPARK 2 are varied, especially in such technologies as deep tech. Most of startup-founders are international and many have customer base in abroad. “This coincides with our goal of a global startup destination,” he said.

NIA believes that deep tech will be more popular in Thailand in the second half year with growing interest from corporate venture capitals.

By next year, NIA will collaborate with university network and partners in vocational education partners selecting smart students incubating them to be startups in deep tech.