Startup Asia is the years first big startup conference here in Singapore. Held February 2 and 3 at the Singapore Post Centre. Their tagline of ‘Pitches, Demos, Founders, & NO B.S.” is quite straight forward as a reference to other startup events.
From the details page alone, you can see that they have an impressive set of guest panelists, investors and attendees from all over Asia. Mobile giants, Gree and Dena as well as several Japanese and Chinese investors. A lot of local players as well representing different industries and sides of the startup world were present.

The conference started off normally with the crowd pickup up after lunch. Lots of talks and people wandering around the booths to get to know the companies more. I greatly enjoyed the pitches where Penn-Olson had a prize of 10,000 USD for the winning company. I had a couple of friends from Founder’s Institute pitching on stage and it was quite exciting seeing them in action. Dema from Vibease and Nicky from Acheev.it represented their companies quite well if it might say.

Saw a bunch of familiar faces as well such as Angeline from Sold.sg (thanks for the mug!) and John from Actatlys

I was amazed to see a couple of Startup Weekend present too just like John’s company, Actatlys, and Fashion Space.

Of course I met a number of BizSpark partners too roaming around the conference hall. Great to see familiar faces enjoying the sessions and the networking opportunities.

I was quite surprised with the number of Japanese companies present during the event showing how international Penn-Olson’s audience is.

Overall, the event went well with lots of learnings from different speakers. Aside from the small venue, I believe that the attendees enjoyed the event and I’ll definitely come for the next one.

PS. One thing I learned about conferences like this is to make sure you have your business cards ready and never be shy in approaching people. I met tons of interesting people during the event and it’s really up to you to say hi and introduce yourself to them. Everybody in conferences like these are looking to connect with people to expand their network so make sure you put your best smile and are ready to meet new friends.