From Car-sharing To Edtech, Meet The Innovators On The Under 30 Asia: Consumer Technology List - Forbes

Entrepreneurs on this year’s Consumer Technology list are utilizing AI for various applications and offering solutions to daily problems.

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Friends Johnson Lim and Toh Ting Feng saw opportunity during the pandemic as people avoided public transport and demand for car-sharing services spiked. Launched in 2021, their startup GetGo is today the largest car-sharing service in Singapore by revenue, with over 200,000 active users who book an average of three trips a month from 1,600 locations across the city-state.

Lim is one of the entrepreneurs who landed a spot on this year’s 30 Under 30 Asia: Consumer Technology list. They are offering solutions to daily problems through tech innovations while building a sustainable business.

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Buying a car is a huge financial commitment in Singapore. A hybrid Toyota sedan, for example, costs about $150,000​​, six times its retail price in Japan, thanks to high government taxes on car purchases to keep their numbers down. GetGo says its customers don’t own a car but occasionally need one to run errands or take the kids places. “While cars are expensive in Singapore, people do still need to drive,” Lim says. GetGo was profitable from its start and in 2023, revenue climbed 50% to over S$70 million ($51 million) over the previous year. The families of Lim and Toh, 41, work in auto-related businesses such as finance and trading. GetGo primarily leases its 3,000 vehicles, the bulk of which are supplied by companies owned by the two families.

By 2030, GetGo aims to expand its fleet to 10,000 vehicles. Treis, a Paris-based investment group, invested S$20 million in February 2023. Beyond Singapore, the company is eyeing Seoul, Sydney, Taipei and Tokyo. “We’re looking for cities with developed transport infrastructure, just like Singapore,” says Lim.

AI to the rescue

This year’s list also hosts entrepreneurs who have developed AI-powered tools for various use cases ranging from helping the blind and identifying fake products to even potentially saving lives.

Kush Jain learned about the difficulties facing the visually impaired while volunteering in 2018 at a school in Bangalore. He cofounded ORama AI, a company that developed a smart glove to help the blind or people with reduced vision learn to read Braille. Using AI, an embedded camera and a speaker, the product traces finger movements and reads out the Braille dots that are touched. Since its founding in early 2022, ORama AI has raised half a million dollars in funding.

Yoshio Aihara, founder of IVA

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Founded in 2019 by Yoshio Aihara, Tokyo-based IVA provides an AI-enhanced service called Fake Busters to authenticate items sold online, ranging from Air Jordans to Hermes bags. With over 1.5 million appraisals under its belt, investors, including online marketplace Mercari, have provided ¥800 million ($5.3 million) in funding to date. The service’s fees start at ¥550 ($3.67) to assess items via customer photos or from those obtained online. For those sent in, starting at ¥3,300, it provides an authenticity guarantee and tag with serial number for verified goods.

In Hong Kong, Josua Chan, Max Lee and Jerry Ng cofounded LifeSparrow Solutions in 2022. The startup’s AI technology focuses on search-and-rescue operations, especially related to hiking, a popular pastime in the hilly city. Its system helps find missing hikers by analyzing drone images of hiking trails and reduces the search time by two-thirds. LifeSparrow raised HK$2 million ($256,000) from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University—Chan and Lee's alma mater—and the Hong Kong government’s Hong Kong Science Park.

Improving Education

As the need for remote education has largely winded down after the pandemic, some startups are now emerging to enhance the education experience mainly offline.

Strive cofounders Pulkit Agarwal and Tamir Shklaz, for example, aim to make math fun for kids through code. Through mainly one-on-one online classes, the Singapore-based startup teaches students to code games, apps, and animation in ways that align with the math they are studying in school, such as coding the game Pong to learn about vectors. Established in 2020, Strive raised $1.3 million in seed funding led by Y Combinator early last year.

Evan Heng, founder of Zenith.

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Another edtech entrepreneur on the list is Evan Heng, who founded the Singapore-based education company Zenith Education Studio in 2019 to help junior college students improve their academics. Heng then launched Zenith Academy to help primary school students improve their English, math and science skills. Zenith now offers a hybrid program that includes classes of ten brick-and-mortar branches with a gamified online education platform. Zenith raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by Trihill Capital and East Ventures in July 2023 to fuel expansion of the company, which is now called Zenith Learning Group.

–Additional reporting by Jonathan Burgos

Check out our complete 2024 30 Under 30 Asia: Consumer Technology list here, and the full 2024 30 Under 30 Asia coverage, click here.

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2024-05-15 21:12:59Z

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