Travel technology company Softinn has won Startup of the Year award at the WIT Startup Pitch in Tokyo, Japan, as part of the WIT Japan & North Asia 2017 Conference.
The Malaysia-headquartered startup offers a cloud-based hotel reservation system for small- and medium-sized hotels. Its platform addresses the pain points of these hotels in Asia which account for the majority of room inventory in the region. It has created and manages LetsGoHoliday.my, a marketplace for hotels and also a portal for travelers to discover hotels apt for their needs. Jason JeeShen Lee, Founder of Softinn,in a statement, said,
We are humbled by the recognition. Winning the WIT Startup Pitch competition helps boost our confidence in serving the small and independent hotels. We thank WIT and Amadeus for making our dream come true.
WIT has been organizing travel startup competitions in Asia for the past eight years and this year’s Pitch was powered by Amadeus Next. From more than 30 submissions, Softinn had qualified for the semi-finals which was conducted on June 8. The Grand Final Pitch took place the day after. Yeoh Siew Hoon, Founder, WIT, said,
I first met the Softinn team about three years ago and thought they had a good idea to solve the pain points of small and medium-sized hotels in Asia which account for the majority of room inventory in our region.
Yeoh had also added,
That they’ve been able to execute so well and grow their business despite being bootstrapped from the start – their presentation showed they’ve managed so far with only US$225,000 in funding – is impressive and shows the determination and passion of the founders.
Softinn Solutions is also an investee company of Intres Capital Partners via its maiden venture capital fund, Axiata Digital Innovation Fund, a corporate venture capital fund backed by Axiata Group, Malaysia Venture Capital Management Berhad and Johor Corporation.
